Chinelo Obogo
The Federal Government has imposed a fine of one million Naira on Flairjet, a UK based charter company, that was impounded for operating a commercial flight into the country as opposed to the humanitarian operations it was given approval to do into Nigeria.
Minister of Aviation Minister, Captain Hadi Sirika, who confirmed the development on his official twitter handle said the airline violated the Civil Aviation Regulations Implementation Standards and that the government has reported their misdemeanor to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority and the UK High Commission in Nigeria.
He said: “Flairjet were found to violate our Civil Aviation Regulations Implementation Standards 1.3.3(a) Table 2(IV)7(a) and IS 1.3.3(a)) Table 2 (VIII) (4). The maximum penalty for each is N500,000. We caused them to pay and reported their callous misdemeanor to UK CAA, MFA and the UK High Commission.”
Sirika revealed last week that a Legacy 600 charter jet with registration number G-ERFX belonging to Flairjet, an airline that operates from Birmingham airport, UK, came in from Cotonou and landed in Lagos at 12.13pm on Sunday, May 17, 2020 carrying passengers.
He said the company applied several times to operate humanitarian flights and that approval was given but it decided to operate commercial services, charging money and flying in and out of the country. The crew was arrested and aircraft was immediately impounded. The pilots were quarantined for 14 days.