The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, has cleared Aero Contractors for resumption of flights across its routes nationwide.
Nuhu, who made this disclosure on Tuesday in Abuja said the clearance was sequel to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the airline on the payment of its outstanding 5% Ticket Sales Charge (TSC).
He described the rumour that the carrier was grounded as unfounded, saying that it never has flight safety issues but only financial challenges which the management is addressing
The Director-General further clarified that during its audit carried out by the NCAA on the airline, the regulatory agency identified some minor issues with the airline’s operations, which were immediately addressed by the airline’s management.
Nuhu explained: “Aero Contractors was not grounded based on safety issues. We did an audit of them because whatever audit you do, you have findings and they were all minor findings. There were no Level 1, 2, or 3 findings. They were very insignificant. We notified them. We audited them and we found out that the issue they had was financial sustainability.
“Aviation is safety sensitive and whenever you have financial difficulty, it is just a matter of time before you will not be able to comply with all the regulatory requirements and some may start cutting corners. So, before the financial issue becomes a safety issue, we discussed it with them. And they, on their own before we took any action, agreed with our findings and suspended their operations to enable them to reorganise and get some funding to get more equipment.
“That is what they have done, we sat with them, they submitted, we asked for projection, which they did, and we reviewed. The first one wasn’t good enough, they had to go and review it and it was quite satisfactory. We had an MoU with them for payment of the outstanding 5% on the Ticket Sales Charge (TSC). So, they are fine. As far as we are concerned, they can resume operations”, the regulator added.
The Director-General restated the regulatory agency’s drive to ensure that all airlines comply with safety rules and recommended practices through the monitoring of all organisations, including the airlines.
He also lamented the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on domestic airlines, foreign exchange regime and Jet A1 challenges bedeviling the industry and called on government to help airlines address these challenges to sustain their operations
It would be recalled the carrier voluntarily suspended services on July 20, 2022, and has been intensifying its efforts to resume operations after it took delivery of some of its aircraft that were sent for scheduled maintenance outside the country.
