FG to penalise airlines selling tickets in dollars

The federal government threatened to penalise international airlines that sell tickets in dollars on Wednesday.Information Guide Nigeria

Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, made this announcement to the media shortly after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting, which was held in the Aso Rock Chambers of the Presidential Villa in Abuja under the chairmanship of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

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Sirika claims that the aviation ministry has learned that some foreign airlines operating in Nigeria are selling tickets in dollars, in defiance of the country’s current legal framework.

He claimed that some airlines had resorted to forbidding regional travel companies from accessing their websites to buy tickets.

The International Air Transportation Association stated in August that the Nigerian government had stopped allowed repatriation of $464 million in foreign airline income as of July 2022.

However, the aviation minister explained the circumstance on Wednesday and disclosed that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority would penalise airlines found responsible for such crimes because they violate the nation’s rules.

He claimed that the NCAA had been told to penalise defaulting carriers and that no offender, no matter how powerful they were, would escape punishment when discovered.

“I want to use this opportunity to say that reports are reaching us that some of the airlines are refusing to sell tickets in naira. That is a violation of our local laws. They will not be allowed. The high and the mighty amongst them will be sanctioned, if they’re caught doing that.

“NCAA has been directed to swing into action and once we find any airline violating this, we will definitely deal with them. Also, they blocked the travel agents from access. They also made only the expensive tickets available and so on and so forth.

“Our regulators are not sleeping; we have a very vibrant Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. Once they find any airline guilty, that airline will be dealt with because we need to protect our people. It is according to our agreements, to what we have signed and this is according to international convention. So going forward, they should desist from doing things that are outside of the law.”JAMB Result

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