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By Ayoola Olaitan
The Secretary General of the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative and Chief Executive Officer, Centurion Securities, Group Captain John Ojikutu (Rtd), has urged the Federal Government not to give airlines cash as bail-out for its stimulus package for airlines.
Ojikutu argued that bailout should be given to only deserving airlines and such payment should be payment of staff salaries of not more than 70 percent.
According to Ojikutu, no bailout should even be considered for any airline that is indebted to any service providers before the lockdown.
His words: “A progressional increase of fees on these services including air navigational and air traffic charges from 25 percent in the first month after; 50 percent in the second month, 75 percent in the third month and full payment begins in the fourth month” .
“Government must ensure that 50 percent of whatever funds are available as bail out for the industry is applied to the critical safety requirements gaps in the FAAN 5 airports designated for opening. It is not surprising that Bicourtney MM2 terminal a private terminal operator scored higher than all the other five terminals assessed at today’s conference”
Ojikutu who reacted after the recent Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) webnair conference held last Thursday expressed dissatisfaction as Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) fails to score above 57 percent in its readiness to resume operations after 3 months of ban on the industry.
He hinted that FAAN failure to hit a convincing point could be as a result of insufficient funds by the agency and blames NCAA for not doing well in auditing government agencies.
“If FAAN is scoring 57 percent with Lagos and Abuja now, we should all be worried; what this conference has shown us is that the recent NCAA audits seem to put emphasis on private airlines operators than the government operators”
“I is very likely that insufficient funds are the challenges for meeting the NCAA Guidelines and requirements. That was not unexpected because the private airlines operators are the biggest debtors to the government operators, and except the government take the FAAN case very seriously to fix the gaps of their insufficiencies, there can be no restart that would be sustainable for lasting operations,” he added.
Ojikutu noted that the FAAN 57 percent as not meeting the International Civil Aviation Organization, (ICAO), standards. He posit that no commercial aviation activities until the airports are fix to meet the NCAA, and indeed, the national safety requirements.
