The investigation will uncover the root causes of the flight delays and cancellations and propose lasting solutions.
The senate has mandated its committee on aviation to invite the minister of aviation and aerospace, Festus Keyamo, the director general of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Chris Najomo, airline operators and other relevant stakeholders to unravel the circumstances behind the incessant flight delays and cancellations in the country.
This resolution followed the adoption of a motion on the incessant delayed and cancelled flights by airline operators in Nigeria during Wednesday’s plenary.
The motion sponsor, Sen. Abdulfatai Buhari (APC, Oyo North) lamented over the series of reportage from the media in the country on the incessant delay and cancellation of flights by airline operators in Nigeria, which ceaselessly seemed to be on the increase in recent time.
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Buhari stressed that this development is worrisome as air travel is one of the most reliable, dependable and quicker means of transportation, often undertaken for business/official purposes and to keep to other scheduled appointments, which are usually time bound.
He said: “As part of interventionist measures to check unethical and unwholesome practices of the practitioners in the aviation sector, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), is statutorily empowered, through the enactment of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Act to provide oversight and guidelines aimed at ensuring that airlines operate within the contemplation of international standards in Nigeria and to ensure that airline customers get value for the services they pay the airlines for.
“The quests for economic diversification and foreign direct investment, which are parts of the current administration’s policy thrust, will remain an illusion if the country’s aviation industry falls short of acceptable best practices across the globe.”
Supporting the motion, Sen. Abba Moro (PDP, Benue South) lamented over his experience with flight delays and cancellations and the negative impact that it could cause.
“On a particular day, I was at the airport travelling to Akure, I saw some of my colleagues and other travellers who had come to the airport the previous day by 2 o’clock and by 3 o’clock they had not gotten the flight. They confessed to sleeping at the airport.
“Nigerian airports are the only airports in the whole wide world where your flights are delayed without any explanation, without any apology, their flights are cancelled without any apology or announcement and so i think that it is high time we take very stern stance on some of these issues because it throws up the problem of our regulatory agencies,” he urged.
Speaking further, he said, “a businessman for instance who had a business meeting in Lagos will come to Abuja here and will not be able to find flights to go back to Lagos, you know what that loss can be. Even in government activities, the government officials that want to travel to Lagos to represent this government at any level of business or programme could get delayed in this place until that event is overtaken. Even health, if you have reason to travel out of one place to the other and you get unnecessary delayed and your flights cancel, God forbid it is possible to lead to death as a result of that negligence. These organisations or service providers are taking Nigerians for a ride and they are making Nigeria a laughing stock,” he added.
He also urged the legislative compliance committee to ensure that whatever resolution that the senate arrives at should be complied with by the agencies.
