DOMESTIC FLIGHTS RESUMPTION DATE NOT FEASIBLE

The Federal Minister of Aviation in Nigeria Hadi Sirika, announced during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, that the industry is not ready to resume flight operations. He was  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 operation 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 and 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.

This report would not be viewed favorably in some quarters as the resumption of domestic flights would have meant that international flights would soon follow while others viewed it favorably as they deem it too early to reopen the borders.

In other news, Nigeria has been declared Polio free and  countries that require polio immunization certificates from Nigerians before travel would likely soon revise that requirement.