The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has announced that it will begin naming and shaming airlines that fail to comply with aviation regulations, particularly in flight cancellations and delays.
The action, according to the NCAA, complies with a directive from the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, reports The Nation.
The Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection of the NCAA, Michael Achimugu, today announced this in a post on his official X handle @mikeachimugu01.
He stated that airlines are required to provide hotel accommodation to passengers stranded between 10 pm and 4 am due to flight disruptions.
The post reads: “If an airline has kept passengers at the terminal up to 00hrs before cancelling a flight, they owe their passengers hotel accommodation. The regulations stipulate that passengers stranded between the hours of 2200 and 0400 be given accommodation.
“The situation where airline staff intentionally disappear, leaving NCAA Consumer Protection Officers to handle justifiably irate and frustrated passengers will no longer be tolerated.
“While one understands the challenges that operators face in our peculiar operating environment, whoever willfully ventures into a business and wants to remain in it must do it well.
“We must not always choose the easy way out. Don’t you want to be called “world class”? Don’t you want to compete at the highest level? If not for the sake of the passengers who trust you to safely fly them, what about for your own pride?
“You cannot expose NCAA officials to avoidable risk when all they do is support your business and protect your rights”.
It continues, “For infractions that are sanctionable, the Authority will apply the fullest measures possible. We will not abandon the letters of our regulations.
“The federal government has instructed that airlines be named and shamed by the NCAA. While we have done our best to advise per solutions to flight disruptions and why not nearly all cases are the fault of the airlines, the NCAA expects that operators must comply with the regulations in the event of a disruption.
“In compliance with the directives from the federal government and the Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, the naming and shaming will commence”.
