The Federal Government on Thursday said airline operators in the country must refund the full cost of travel tickets to passengers after a two-hour delay.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika disclosed at the ministerial press briefing organized by the Presidential Communication Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He read some of the rights of aviation passengers at the briefing and charged them to demand their rights whenever they were trampled upon by airlines.
He said, “On domestic flights, delay beyond one hour, carrier should provide refreshment, and one telephone call, or one SMS, or one e-mail. They should send you an SMS or email or call you to say, ‘I am sorry, I am delaying for one hour’.
“Delay for two hours and beyond, the carrier shall reimburse passengers the full volume of their tickets.
“Delay between 10pm and 4am, carrier shall provide hotel accommodation, refreshment, meal, two free calls, SMS, email and transport to-and-fro airport.
Sirika also noted that debts owed by airlines in the country to federal agencies had risen to about N37 billion, and therefore, vowed to recover every kobo of it.
The minister explained that the debts were owed to aviation parastatals, including Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN; Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA; and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, among others.
Speaking on the controversy over the disbursement of the N5 billion COVID-19 Palliatives to aviation stakeholders, Sirika said, “in fact, the service providers in our system, FAAN, NAMA, said oh these guys are owing us, we should take the money from the money being given as palliatives.
“We said no but the intent of President Buhari is to ensure that he cushion the effect on businesses. Let us find a way of surviving, and let them take the money. So we would have taken the money and left them with nothing and we stay with nothing.
“So, this brings to the question on the money owed the parastatals. It is about N37 billion that they are owing, especially, Arik, the culprit. I know they’re owing us about, N13, N14 billion.
“If you’re owing government, you are owing FAAN, the Bi-Courtney is owing about N14 billion as at the last count. It has not paid a single dime since the time he started to run the terminal building. And we have not ceased giving him, electricity, water, fire cover, and so on and so forth. He hasn’t paid a dime for 13 years.
“If we go to shut his doors, media, of course, and Nigerian people will say we’re killing businesses but he is killing our services too, because we have to have that money to provide for that toilet that you’re looking in Lagos airport.”
