The National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) have accused foreign airlines of exploiting Nigerian travellers with high airfares.
The group also debunked the claim by Sen. Hadi Sirirka that the airlines now sell air tickets in dollars to their Nigerian passengers, insisting that the foreign carriers still sell in naira.
Mrs. Susan Akporiaye, the President of NANTA,who stated these in Lagos during interaction with aviation journalists,said that the delay in the repatriation of the funds by foreign carriers emboldened them to exploit the Nigerian air travellers.
She maintained that the delay by the Federal Government in granting to the airlines their funds was a violation of the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) arrangements entered with them by the government, but insisted imposing high airfares on the Nigerian travellers by the airline was also unwarranted.
According to her,despite the announcement of the release of $265 million by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as part of the trapped funds, the airlines were yet to open their lower inventories, thereby leading to high fare rates by air travellers.
She alleged that these high fares were targeted at only Nigerian travellers, stressing that this could not be seen anywhere else on the continent, eve where the airlines are still unable to repatriate their funds.
She added: ”It is sad that Nigerians have to buy tickets to the tune of N4 million and be charged as high as N1 million to change travel dates even on tickets bought before this crisis began.This is unacceptable, exploitative and hostile to the survival of Nigerian aviation downstream sector and to which we call for sanity and return to the best inventory practices and deployment.”
She further commended the government for the release order of some of the funds, but decried that most of them were yet to be paid their funds by the CBN.
Akporiaye also implored the government a to open further windows of engagement by calling for a meeting with all parties involved, which should include the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and NANTA.
Meanwhile,unions in the Nigerian aviation industry have alleged the import of strange clauses in the aviation agencies bills presently before President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
The unions vowed to embark on a peaceful protest on Monday, September 12, 2022 to ensure the removal of the clauses they claimed were not part of the original bills presented before the National Assembly in 2021.
The unions; National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Air Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), National Association of Aircraft Pilots, Engineers (NAAPE) and the Amalgamated Unions of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Employees (AUPCTRE) alleged that some of the powers were usurped from the Minister of Labour and Productivity and taken over by the Minister of Aviation.
Speaking on behalf of the unions, Comrade Ochema Aba, the General Secretary of NUATE said that the new bills have put the aviation industry under essential services and are thereby prohibited from taking part in a strike or any other industrial action.
The unions insisted that the designation of services rendered by the aviation agencies as essential services in which industrial action should be prohibited was not a subject that came under discussion at any time during the current processes of the Bills of any of the agencies and wondered how it crept in the bills.
He added: ”During the public hearings in the Aviation Committee of the House of Representatives, issue of essential service was responded to by the National president of NAAPE who drew attention to a National Industrial Court ruling on the matter, to the effect that airlines do not render essential services. As far as we were concerned, the matter rested at that, as no member of the public in particular canvassed any such position.More disturbingly, the subject of essential services did not feature in any of the deliberations of either Committees of the National Assembly in the course of making any of the six bills in question, as National Assembly records show.’It is therefore, baffling, to say the list, how these clauses mentioned above found their way surreptitiously into the bills.”