NEW AVIATION CHARGES: A NEED FOR CAUTION

The NCAA recently introduced a new user charge for non schedule commercial operators; the action has generated a lot of controversy and a law suit. The NCAA has taken the airlines under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) to court to determine if the authority is empowered by law to introduce such charges. This is comical, is it NCAA the regulator of the industry that should go to court or AON the aggrieved? I would have expected the NCAA to use the court to retrieve the outstanding ticket sales charge and Value Added Tax running into billions of naira which is trapped with AON members with or without an active AOC. I just hope they consulted outside the box before going to court because the aviation agencies are serial losers when it comes to the dispensation of justice, the judgment debt of the industry and catastrophic concession cases are attestations while the acquittal of an agency head for contempt of court was widely celebrated as if it was the final judgment. Curiously the private jet owners or the ‘ogas’ at the top were exempted from this new tariff, they cannot be exempted from a special luxury tax, because of some these jets surreptitiously operate charter. The AON should have 26 members based on the list of active AOC holders as published by the NCAA last week, a cursory look at that list shows that thirteen of them are small to mid range jets charter operators, three of them are Hajj/Pilgrim operators, seven of them are schedule operators while the remaining three are schedule operators that have suspended operations but have an active AOC due to the charter operations they do on the side or how else can we describe active AOC without operating scheduled flight for more than six months. The non schedule operators from the above have practically hijacked the AON, the ideal thing as obtained in other climes is to have two associations one for the schedule and the other for non schedule operators. This is necessitated by the type of service, clients, support, protection, maintenance, legislation, subsidy etc that cannot and can never be the same of these two categories of operators. The non schedule operators are the honeycomb of civil aviation world over, their service is luxurious and heavily taxed they do not get subsidy, economic protection, stabilization fund neither are they exempted from paying custom duties on spares and machinery. In Nigeria they have forced themselves on us all, by robbing an industry they are to feed, by operating with foreign registered carriers to the detriment of Nigerian professionals, under invoicing the agencies, delaying payment, diversion and extension of flights e.t.c. Is it not absurd that the private jet sector is booming and thriving while the commercial airlines are shrinking and struggling? Yes it is! They are thriving because they get their money from clients and shortchange the system through numerous agents, commissions, round tripping, illegal subsidies, gross under invoicing and supervision by the agencies. The DG in his publication last week said all other charges are embedded in the new fee, which literally means, warehousing of all payments; therefore their operation will now be collated in a coordinated process by the requisite agencies. I just hope the reconciliation period will not be for the long knives. The threat by operators to relocate to Ghana is empty and cannot fly rather they should negotiate, discuss and pay commensurately which is the norm considering it’s a luxury service. They can go further by resisting private jet operators and the military (Air force,Navy & Police) who pseudo operate and are scooping from their market by operating civil non schedule flights. The military in two South American countries registered a civil arm to operate such flights; therefore civilian passengers being ferried are insured and compensated if the need arises. The military are to assist in emergencies or act as back up for terrains too difficult for the civil aircrafts in extreme conditions not compete for civil charter operations. On a last note, Dr Aliu a former Director with the NCAA will be voted as the first black president of ICAO general assembly, my first encounter with him was sometime in the mid 90s, when he came to represent the former DG of NCAA, Late Engr Haruna at a conference organized by my association. Over the years he remains a perfect gentle man, that cannot ruffle feathers, as he ascend to that enviable position he should remember the people, system and agencies he left behind and ensure our participation, certification and recognition in all ICAO related activities It’s a better legacy than courtesy visits or gifts. Congratulations to the new ICAO president.