• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

NCAA considers restarting domestic travel with five airports 

Lagos Airport

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is currently looking at restarting domestic travel by resuming flight operations in four or five airport soon.

The federal government had suspended flight operations on March 2020 in a to curtail the spread of corona virus.

Speaking at a webinar conference organised by Aviation Round Table, Musa Nuhu, director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)  and Fola Akinkuotu, managing director of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA)  put forward the idea of restarting domestic travel with four or five airports in a bid not to choke the system.

Nuhu who initiated that conversation said air transport must be safe and not become part of spreading the Corona Virus.

He stated that physical distancing is an issue and discussions were still on because of the issue of vacating the middle seat.

“ We may resume domestic operations with four or five airports and we will expand as we get better. We don’t want to rush everything at the same time and get it choked up.

“If you do that extra expenses and airlines need money, every money is important and we cannot achieve the two meters physical distance but we are hopeful in the next few days we can resolve that,” Nuhu said.

He said the team has discussed what the sub-sector ( airlines, ground handlers, service providers etc) need and forwarded to Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation for approval stating that, ”We have made our suggestion and recommendations and we are awaiting feedback.

“We may not get all we requested as  you know but we are hopeful”, he said.

Managing Director NAMA stressed that aviation survived the security challenges of 9/11  and  he believe the sector will survive COVID-19.

He also empathized with the airlines stating that forex is high and needed for training, spare parts, maintenance and a lot of other key factors stressing that airlines will be the ones absorbing these charges.

He also agreed with the NCAA DG on reopening domestic operations stating that Lagos, Abuja , Kano and Port Harcourt can open first while government faces the challenges and tweak plans to ensure others are open.