Mounting debts worry airlines, discuss N22bn repayment plans with NCAA

Airlines owing the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority a total of N22bn have held a meeting with the agency on reconciliation and plans for payment.

The Director-General, NCAA, Captain Musa Nuhu, said this when the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation led by Nnolim Nnaji paid him a visit on Wednesday.

Apart from the devastating effects of COVID-19 on businesses, airlines say the recent rise in naira-to-dollar rate has exposed them to more financial needs.

Except workers’ salaries and ticket sales, everything other thing in the aviation business is denominated in dollars.

A chief operation officer of one of the local carriers said the major worry was the high cost of maintenance.

For instance, according to him, the C-check, which is required every 18 months, now costs an average of $2m per commercial aircraft.

On the meeting with airlines, Nuhu said, “Under your guidance, we have carried on that agreement that we had. We had a meeting with the operators on the issue of the debt collection and agreed to notify each airline on the level of debt that they have.

 “We will sit down with them and do the reconciliation. We will then implement a payment plan. We do not expect everyone to pay all their money at a go because of the difficulties in the industry and economic downturn.”

He said the agreement would be a win-win for all parties at the end of the day.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had in November given the total debt airlines owed the agency over a period of 10 years as N22bn.

Experts have said unless the Federal Government bail out the airlines and give them a special forex window, airfares might continue to rise and become unaffordable for the travelling public in the festive season.

It was observed last week that many of the local airlines had raised their fares by about 100 per cent due to high exchange rate that hit N500 to $1 at the black market.

This has seen an average one-hour economy class seat of N33, 000 rise to N75, 000 over the counter of some airlines. And average return trip variants also climbed to N121, 000 from about N60, 000 two weeks ago.