Following an investigation into the alleged violation of aviation laws by British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic Airline, (VAA) the Senate Committee on Aviation has proposed a fine of $135m dollars and $100m to be paid by BA and VAA.
The committee looked into the “violation of Aviation Laws and Practice by Foreign Airlines in Nigeria”. The report of the committee was read at the floor of the Senate. The committee is headed by Senator Hope Uzodinma.
The report said “NCAA working with Federal Ministry of Justice and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), should compel BA and VAA to refund Nigerian passengers monies due to them as they did in the UK and USA and also pay to the Federal Government of Nigeria a fine of $135m and $100m respectively in line with the Civil Aviation Act 2006”.
But the report ran into murky waters after most senators who debated the report criticized another recommendation which sought to make Arik Airline Nigeria’s national flag carrier.
The recommendation read “Arik airline with over 26 new aircrafts in their fleet and any other local airline with similar capacity which must have operated in Nigeria for a minimum period of 5 years should be granted National flag carrier status.”
The senators who were fixated on the nomination of Arik Air to operate as national carrier complained of the companies inefficiencies and financial struggles.
According to Senator Danjuma Goje, he said “to single out Arik Airline as the best airline beats our imagination.” He noted that with a high record of constant flight cancellations, “Arik seems to be giving up”.
Hitting the airline hard, Senator Isa Galaudu, said Arik is highly indebted and that there are rumours that AMCON has taken over the airline.
“Arik was grounded for owing money so it does not deserve to be a national carrier. He further urged the committee to look into the activities of private jet owners and governors who own planes.”
On his part Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi said “Our business is not to recommend carriers but to tighten the laws of the aviation sector” while underscoring the dearth of regulatory laws that has crippled the sector.
The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu on noticing the unfavorable disposition of his colleagues to the report waded in to salvage the report which he described as throwing away the baby with the birth water. He pleaded with them for the recommendations to be read at a later date.
Attempts by Sen. Hope to clarify that the decision to pick out Arik as national carrier stemmed from a position of halting the exploitation suffered by Nigerians at the hands of the foreign airlines citing lack of competition as the basis for such exploitation failed to sail through.
He subsequently withdrew the report for further work adding that there was need to include the views expressed by other senators on the issue.
Meanwhile, the Senate directed its committee on Aviation to investigate rumours that the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Odua has declined to grant a go ahead for Emirate Airline operate in other parts of the country unless in Enugu state.
Mark who spoke against the background of the report, said the huge exploitation of Nigerians by foreign airlines is caused by the failure to ensure that the extant aviation laws no matter how defective are implemented.
Mark said “I have not seen in this report where you have explained the difference in airfare that exist between flying from Accra-London and Lagos-London or Abuja-London. You addressed it in the other volume that you brought but what I not found here is any recommendation that remedies it, because it is on going. I know you are talking of anti trust laws and all that but that is not the issue. If this has happened in the US all those who paid in the past would they have asked them to refund their monies one way or the other. Two, let me agree with you that our laws are weak, but even. These weak laws are not fully implemented. Weak at the laws maybe they are not fully implemented because. It is this partial implementation of the weak laws that has given rise to recommend some reforms here. So we already have problems of implementing the laws that we have in place.”
On the emirate issue, Mark said “There are all these rumours that Emirate wants to come here and the aviation minister has told the airline to go to Enugu instead of allowing the airline to come to Abuja or Kano or somewhere else. These things are all in the air and these are the things your committee has to find out for us whether it is true or false because when we say we want to allow competition in the system, then we have to provide environment for every body to have a fair deal in the competition.
So there are questions in our opinion that you still need to go back and answer.
“We have to reorganise our airports properly. With the airports we have at the moment, for foreign airlines to come here they are doing us a favour.
Because as soon as you get to our airport, it is so obvious. You get to the luggage section it is just confusion, come to immigration, passport control and custom areas there is even bigger confusion. We need to do our work well before we begin to point accusing fingers and blaming other people for our problems. Because we are not identifying the problems we cannot accept the blame then we won’t make progress. There are a lot of the recommendations that are truly our own problem. We have failed in what we ought to do so we should not be blaming other people. We should get back home and do our home work properly we will be better off.”