Suggest review committee

Indigenous airlines have intensified calls for urgent government intervention in the aviation sector, seeking a direct meeting with President Bola Tinubu over high taxes, charges and operating costs threatening their survival.

The airlines also canvassed the setting up of an aviation review committee on taxes and charges by the President to look into the various levies imposed on domestic airline operations by the various government agencies.

The Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, stated this yesterday during an interview on Arise TV, which was monitored by The Guardian.

Onyema, who is also the Vice President of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), said the country’s airlines were battling unprecedented economic pressures, worsened by soaring aviation fuel prices, high interest rates and multiple regulatory charges.

He warned that without urgent reforms, more airlines would close shop.

Onyema specifically called for a review of the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC), collected by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), on behalf of four other parastatals, saying that it was adding more financial burdens on their operations.

He particularly criticised what he called excessive taxes and charges imposed on airlines, insisting that they were contributing to the high mortality rate among Nigerian carriers.

Onyema further stated that airlines across the world were struggling due to rising operational costs triggered by global economic challenges, including the ongoing tensions in the Middle East involving Iran and the United States.

While acknowledging ongoing efforts by the Tinubu administration and the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, to improve the sector, Onyema maintained that more needed to be done to salvage the airlines from collapse.