The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has said it will come down hard on foreign airline operators that treat Nigerian passengers with disregard.
According to the regulator, steps are been taken to ensure that Nigerian passengers that fly either in or out of the country are not maltreated by the foreign airlines, adding that any maltreatment by the airlines might lead to serious sanctions.
The Acting Director-General, NCAA, Mr. Benedict Adeyileka, frowned on the situation where the airlines acted like they were doing Nigerians a favour.
He said, “The unfortunate thing is that these foreign airlines are not giving us the respect that we deserve. These airlines extort us with their fees and yet they treat us as if they are doing us a favour.
“What we are telling the foreign airlines is that they have to respect our culture. The NCAA is set to enforce a situation that the airlines should treat Nigerians like they will treat their own nationals. We are working seriously on this.
“I want to emphasise that American laws do not apply in Nigeria; we place emphasis on that. Those are the type of things that we say we are going to work with our airlines and educate them.”
Adeyileka also called on indigenous airlines to put things in place to ensure that they extended their services beyond the shores of Africa, adding that it was not good enough that only one airline from Nigeria was operating into the United States.
According to him, the NCAA looks forward to a situation where other indigenous airlines will also fly into other routes in America and the United Kingdom.
He said, “We look forward to Nigerian airlines doing more routes than some of these foreign carriers. We should encourage all other airlines to assist in bringing revenue back to Nigeria. I am appealing to Nigerians that they should let us get together and stop solving the unemployment problem of other countries; we should start solving our own unemployment.
“We want to expand our operations out of Nigeria; we are the ones that will develop our country, no other country will do it for us.”
Speaking on Nigeria’s retention of the United States Federal Aviation Administration’s Category One air safety rating, the NCAA boss called on Nigerians to patronise local carriers that were flying into foreign countries.
“Most of the mega carriers flying in and out of Nigeria are filled up with Nigerian passengers, thereby prompting the question why Nigerians do not patronise their own? Airlines like Arik, which supported Nigeria’s Cat 1 retention bid, have newer aircraft they deploy to the same markets with these foreign airlines but I wonder why Nigerians do not fly them,” he said.
