Airlines – The Commerce Africa https://thecommerceafrica.com African Reneissance Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:16:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9 Failed flight schedules: Sanction airlines operators-PEBEC ES https://thecommerceafrica.com/failed-flight-schedulespebec-es-call-for-sanction-of-airlines-operators/ https://thecommerceafrica.com/failed-flight-schedulespebec-es-call-for-sanction-of-airlines-operators/#respond Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:06:02 +0000 https://thecommerceafrica.com/?p=13237 The Executive Secretary of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Jumoke Oduwole has called out Airpeace, an indigenous flight operator over its repeated failure to comply with announced flights schedules as well as its unreliable change of schedules.

Oduwole who is also the Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, challenged the company in a petition titled “Ease of Doing Business Intervention : Request for Urgent Intervention Regarding Service of Air Peace” which she addressed to Musa Nuhu, Director General, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), regulators of activities of airlines in Nigeria.

Other key government stakeholders such as Hadi Sirika, Aviation Minister; Emmanuel Meribole, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation; Managing Director, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Rabiu Yadudu,Managing Director, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Babatunde Irukera, Chief Executive Officer, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) were also copied in the petition.

Nairametrics reported an account of what she described as a misleading flight rescheduling by the company, she said;

“My personal experience today bears repeating as an example of what many air travelers in Nigeria, including other members of my team and I have experienced firsthand and on various occasions in the past months. On Saturday, April 22, 2023, two Air Peace tickets were purchased to return to Lagos from Akure with a departure time of 3:30PM to return from attending a programme in Omuo–Ekiti, Ekiti State, (near border with Kogi State). On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, a schedule change notification was sent informing of an earlier departure time from 3:30PM to 12:40PM. A subsequent notification was sent at 2:37AM today, April 28, 2023 informing of a further time change from 12:40PM to 8:30AM.

At 7:30AM, as soon as I became aware of the notification (one hour before the new departure time), I abandoned the event I had come to attend, and proceeded to immediately start making my way down to the Akure Airport, a two-and-a-half-hour journey on the shortest route from Omuo-Ekiti. The PEBEC Secretariat team also called the Air Peace Duty Manager in Akure, Mr Charles, and asked him to please reschedule the flight to a later time to allow more passengers time to see the notification and make the new flight time. He stated that there was nothing he could do.”

“I arrived at the Akure airport at 9:13AM (for what was to be a 12:40pm flight). The Air Peace Lagos-bound flight had departed. Being the only flight of the day from Akure to Lagos, and with another important official engagement to attend at 5PM in Lagos this evening, I was forced to proceed on an unplanned 5-hour road trip to Lagos. This is only one of many such instances of unacceptable inefficiency of this airline operator in recent times, to which most frequent air travelers in Nigeria can testify,” she said.

Oduwole said the implications of these unchecked actions by airline operators on the Nigerian economy, businesses and persons include wasted man hours, high cost and time of doing business in Nigeria, lack of operational transparency of airline operators, difficult ticket refund processes while selling tickets and tying down funds with real and opportunity costs to air travelers.
She called for an investigation of the recurrent situation and necessary actions to ensure that such issues are addressed with airline operators on pain of sanction in order to ensure that the growing monopolistic tendencies of poor service offerings by some of our air transport operators in Nigeria are curbed as a matter of great urgency

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Airlines Risk $3,500 Fine Per Passenger without COVID-19 Test Result https://thecommerceafrica.com/airlines-risk-3500-fine-per-passenger-without-covid-19-test-result/ https://thecommerceafrica.com/airlines-risk-3500-fine-per-passenger-without-covid-19-test-result/#respond Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:11:17 +0000 http://thecommerceafrica.com/?p=1704

The Federal Government on Monday said airlines would be fined $3,500 per passenger for airlifting passengers without negative COVID-19 test results as it prepared to open international flights.

The Coordinator, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr Sanni Aliyu, said this at the daily briefing of the PTF on in Abuja.

Speaking on the new protocols that would start from Aug. 29, the coordinator said it was expected that passengers coming into the country must present a PCR COVID-19 test result that was within seven days.

Aliyu also said that when a passenger arrived Nigeria and present a PCR negative result, the passenger was expected to self-isolate for seven days and submit his or her COVID-19 test before reuniting with the community.

On the concerns over cases of passengers coming into the country with a negative COVID-19 test result and testing positive in Nigeria, he said that PTF was studying the situation and would take a decision when the need arose.

Aliyu said that health workers would monitor passengers on self-isolation and if any passenger failed to present itself for testing after seven days, the immigration would assist and proper sanctions would be melted to the passenger.

The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that the Minister of Aviation, Aden Hadi Sirika, had said the country would ban flights from countries that have placed bans on flights from Nigeria when the international flights resume.

Sirika said that meetings have already been communicated with the international carriers where these decisions had been revealed to them.

The minister, while speaking on preparation so far, said: “We are almost there. Just a few things to be done but we will be ready in the coming days. By Monday, we will have a comprehensive details for the resumption.”

”About 1,280 passengers will be allowed in on a daily basis in Abuja and Lagos airports, which have been billed to start first when the international flights resume.” 

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