For operating on one aircraft, NCAA downgrades First Nation to non-scheduled operator
The hammer of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), on Monday landed on First Nation Airways as it was downgraded from scheduled operations to a non scheduled operator after operating months with one aircraft which was seen as violating safety procedures.
This was revealed by the Director General of the NCAA, Captain Muhtar Usman during a media interaction in Lagos on the arrival and commencement of the US FAA team who are in Nigeria to assess Nigerian aviation industry in terms of level of compliance with international best practices.
Usman said his agency is looking at issues in collaboration with First Nation to see how the fine N33.5million imposed on it for violating safety procedures will be paid as soon as possible.
According to him, the airline had downscaled its operations from schedule operator to non-schedule, but its status would remain so until it improved its aircraft fleet to at least two and would have to meet the requirements for schedule services.
Explaining more on the sanction, NCAA boss noted that “they use one aircraft and they were on schedule services, but the present status now is that the certificate of the air worthiness of the status has been changed to non-schedule service, which is charter service. So, they are no longer into schedule service until they are able to meet the requirement for scheduled service”.
“I will still confirm to you that whatever sanction we impose on any operator its in-line with Civil Regulation and it’s not punitive, but corrective. FirstNation was sanctioned, they appealed, the appeal, which was upheld. So, we are still working with them to pay the sanction. We don’t want to cripple any operations. If it is safety related, we will not waste time, but the payment is being worked out now.
Giving fresh insights on the visit of the FAA team from the US, Usman assured that Nigeria will scale the hurdle, stressing that the regulatory agency was prepared to retain the Category One Status it attained in 2010.
In his submission, “We got FAA Category 1 in 2010, retained it in 2014.We hope that with the efforts we have put in ,we would be able to retain it this time around.”
“NCAA has done a lot in the areas that we are expected to cover and not only for this audit, in our statutory responsibilities; safety, aviation security and also regulations. We have the new civil aviation bill, which is on its way to the National Assembly. The bill is to enhance the current Act of 2006 and it’s supposed to be in line with the new annexes of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Convention. We also amended our regulation, which is 2015 Civil Aviation Regulation.
“Re-organisation has also been going on to make sure the organisation continues to discharge its responsibilities as it should be, which is to be in line with ICAO. We want to continue to attract and retain qualified personnel in the industry in sufficient numbers to make sure we carry out the safety as required by ICAO.
“In the area of enforcement and compliance, we have done a lot. We make sure that our regulations, which are mainly safety, are enforced. Our sanctions are not supposed to be punitive, but corrective. We have been sanctioning where we need to sanction in order to correct and instill safety in the system and even security. We thank God in the last two years we never had any major accident. There is zero tolerance in accident at NCAA.”
The FAA team is led by Mr. Louis Avrez, International Technical Support, William Amoz, Aviation Safety Inspector, Benjamin Garrido, Frontline Manager, Airworthiness and L.P. Vanstory Ill, International Affairs.
