June 21 Not Feasible For Flight Resumption — FG

The Federal Government yesterday said the June 21 date for resumption of domestic flights was no longer feasible.

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who disclosed this during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, said the industry was not ready yet to resume operation.

Represented by the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Musa Nuhu, Sirika said the agency would not approve the resumption of flight operations until it gets confirmation that operations could be carried out in a safe and organised manner.

“We never said aviation is going to start definitely on the 21st, we were supposed to put a report back based on what we have and we have some work to do. As such, June 21 is not a feasible date to resume operations.

“Despite the pressure from different quarters, we will not start operation on any date until we are sure we can start operating in an efficient manner.”

He explained that there was a lot of work to be done before operations could resume in the aviation sector.

“Prior to this mandate from the presidential task force, the regulatory body, NCAA, had developed advisory circulars distributed to the different sectors of the industry. These circulars required all sectors of industry to present a restart plan to the regulatory body for approval.

“A lot of service providers have provided their restart plans and these restart plans are to be reviewed by the civil aviation authority.

“When we review those documents, if we are happy with those documents, then we will go to each individual organisation to verify what they have given as their restart plan.

“Some provided inadequate documents and their documents were sent back to them. Significant progress has been made but there is still a lot of work to be done.

The aviation system is a very complex system and this system has been compounded with the public health care concept which a lot of them in the aviation system are not used to implementing.”

He maintained that the agency and all stakeholders in the sector had a statutory duty to make sure operations were safe and secure.

FG