The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has berated the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) over its recent statement about the activities of Air Peace.
According to Keyamo, the statement by FCCPC which questioned Air Peace’s pricing, was very careless.
The Minister added that the FCCPC should have contacted the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) instead of going public.
Naija News reports that Keyamo made the submission on Sunday during an interview with Arise TV, where he spoke about FCCPC’s invitation to the airline over its pricing issues and alleged poor services.
He stated that it was wrong for the FCCPC to single out some airlines for questioning without referring to the regulatory agency.
“I think it was a very careless statement – I say that with all apology – by the agency, making such a statement without consulting the core agency involved in regulation, which is the NCAA. The power to regulate these airlines and for the airlines to inform about their price increase and all of that is domiciled in NCAA; that is the core agency.
“They should have contacted the NCAA for them to look at the books, which we have been doing, so we would have given them facts. But to single out a few airlines that we are struggling to expose to the world for them to get more enhanced capacity, it was a bit careless,” he stated.
Keyamo added that the challenges facing the aviation industry include capacity limitations, especially regarding aircraft acquisition, servicing routes forex fluctuation, and not exploitation.
He said, “What we are facing is a problem of capacity of the airlines to acquire aircraft and to service their routes. Again, we have things that are totally out of our control, which is the issue of the fluctuation of the forex, the exchange rate, that affects everything in aviation. Everything in aviation is dollar based.”
The Minister stated that the challenges of foreign exchange affect the operation costs of Nigerian airlines and the government is actively working towards addressing the issues.
“All of these are foreign exchange, and with the fluctuating nature of our naira against the dollar, you will expect that it will affect also their cost of operation. Now, what we are therefore doing is to ensure that we expose them to the markets across the world where they can now access aircraft on very good terms, and this will impact on the prices of tickets and their cost of operation. That is what led us to addressing the issue of the practice direction pursuant to the Cape Town Convention. That is the core of the problem of the aviation industry that this president and vice president graciously supported us to get to, and we are there now,” he said.
As part of efforts towards strengthening the country’s aviation sector, Keyamo disclosed that he would be leading a Nigerian delegation to Dublin to meet major airline financiers and discuss how to access aircraft at better rates.
This, he said, would have a positive impact on operations and ticket costs.
“All the major airline financiers, aircraft financiers, and liaisons, are all gathered there (in Dublin), and for the first time, they have invited Nigeria to say, because of what we have done, because of the fact that all these efforts we have made to make them access these markets around the world, has increased our compliance score from 49% to 75.5% for the first time in history, all credit to the policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Our global score has gone up for the first time in the history of Nigeria. And because of that, they want to now listen to us. They want to listen to our operators as to how they can now access aircraft at very cheap rates. And this will impact eventually, all the process of tickets.
“So, that is why I said it was a careless statement that they made, singling out airlines to say they’re exploiting prices and all that, without even coming to us to say what is the core of this problem?” the Minister said.
The Minister said he has to play the dual role of protecting consumers and ensuring that the airlines also remain in business.
He, therefore appealed to Nigerians to bear with them on observed inadequacies, submitting that efforts are ongoing to tackle them.
He said, “I’m in a very delicate position because I’m also here to protect Nigerians. I’m also here to protect the travellers and to ensure that they also get tickets at a very good rate. And that is what I have also addressed in terms of what we are eventually doing to address the problems and the concerns of Nigerians. But I must also say that I must stand in the gap to ensure that our local airlines do not go under. In the last 40 years, more than 100 airlines have come and gone. The mortality rate is so high that assignation minister, this is the only government addressing their problem among our five point’s agenda for the first time.
“Like I said in history, we are saying we put survival of local airlines as one of our KPIs. The policy shift is that other governments have said, look, you have no capacity, ye cannot even help you or your other foreign airlines come and take over our national carriers and help us. That is a wrong policy approach. But this policy shift is that we must enhance their capacity, and that is what we are doing.
“So that I think is the direction I think we are going. It’s a clear direction. We apologise, we beg Nigerians to be patient on this, but we are addressing this frontally together with the airlines and together with global issues that will enhance their capacities at the end of the day.”
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