FG To Announce Date For Flight Resumption Next Week
***Unions Kick As FG Mulls Airports Concession
By Our Correspondent
The Federal Government has said it would announce a date for the commencement of domestic flights next week. The Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, said the sector was stalling the resumption of flights because it still needs to close some gaps.
He said a dry run test would be conducted at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja as part of the preparation to commence flights.
He also said yesterday during the briefing by the members of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, that “since the last announcement that Sunday 21st of June is no longer feasible for the opening of the airports, we would like to report that we have had significant progress in the readiness of the industry to restart.
Sirika, who was represented by the Director-General, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu, said: “The gaps have been closed but however, we still have a few gaps within the aviation ecosystem and this will be closed hopefully in the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, ahead of domestic travel restart, Air Peace and Dana Air on Wednesday embarked on out of storage test flights for its 25 aircraft.
Meanwhile the Aviation labour unions have issued threats to the federal government over the approval it received from the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) to concession Nigeria’s four major airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.
The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika has reiterated that concessioning of the facilities would pave way for private investors to invest in airport modernisation.
This, he had said was the key to aviation development of the Buhari administration.
But unions in the aviation sector have vowed to resist the planned concession of the major airports.
Arising from an extraordinary emergency Joint Action Committee meeting on Wednesday, the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) branch said due process was violated by government and thereby the interests of Nigerians and workers could be protected.
The unions insisted that government cannot protect the interest of the workers when the airports are concessioned, adding that they could suffer what workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways whose personnel were not compensated for several years until the current administration paid severance package to those still alive and “they have not even completed the payment.”
