By Chinelo Obogo
Chairman of Hudson Bay Aviation, Mohammed Tukur, has described the letter written to the Senate by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) asking it to remove the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) from the civil service structure as ‘meddlesome interlopping’.
Tukur, a former Deputy General Secretary of the AON, said the letter by the association’s chairman, Abdulmunaf Yunusa, is unnecessary and advised Yunusa, who is the chairman of Azman Air to rather concentrate on building his airline that is just coming out of the authority’s hammer over safety concerns than raise unnecessary alarm to create panic in the minds of the flying public.
The AON had written to the Senate requesting the removal of NCAA from the civil service to enable it offer salaries that could attract experienced manpower to the authority. But Tukur said that NCAA has the most skilled and experienced manpower in the sub-region which enabled it to acquire the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Category One status and that the country has laboured hard to build the regulatory authority to a global standard, saying ‘beginers’ like Yunusa should not be allowed to pull it down through unguarded statements.
“If the remunerations of the staff of the authority have become contentious matter, it was not the duty of AON as a body to champion the cause. If there was need for such input from the operators there is an open channels of communication between the NCAA and the operators on one hand and the Ministry of Aviation.
“If NCAA staff were not being properly remunerated as propagated by the AON chairman, the workers’ union is the appropriate body through its collective bargaining to initiate dialogue with the management of the regulatory agency for salary review and not the business of airline operators,” Tukur said.
Tukur stated that he is not convinced that the Azman Airlines boss is speaking the mind of all the members of the AON, noting that the purported statement is self-indicting on the part of the operators as they have by such a letter, admitted that they are not being properly regulated by the authority for lack of manpower.
“This position also tends to imply that Nigerian aviation is not safe for investment, it is also likely to push up insurance premium and the cost of aircraft lease among others’ he further stated.