Pilots and Engineers Reject Plan to Cut NCAA Funding

The rules, inspections, certifications, and oversight systems that protect passengers today did not emerge by accident. They were strengthened through painful lessons, difficult reforms, and the collective determination that the country must never again allow avoidable safety failures to claim innocent lives.

Nigerians may have moved on from the dark years when devastating air crashes repeatedly shook the nation, but aviation safety systems are built on institutional memory. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) operates under severe financial pressure, making it difficult to adequately fund critical safety oversight activities.

Chairman of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Diepreye Saburugha, and Secretary of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Celestine Chukwu, said the issue confronting the sector is not simply how the existing five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared, but the persistent backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines. According to them, the failure by many operators to fully remit Ticket Sales Charges collected from passengers had significantly weakened the revenue pool available for distribution to all beneficiary agencies.

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the NCAA were established with different funding models. The 1999 Report of the Implementation Committee on the Establishment of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency established two different funding models for the two organisations. The NCAA was conceived as Nigeria's independent safety and economic regulator with responsibility for protecting the travelling public through the oversight of the entire civil aviation industry.

In 1999, Engr. I. Mamman chaired a committee that recommended the establishment of the NCAA as a safety and economic regulator, and NAMA as a commercial air navigation service provider. The 5% Ticket Sales Charge and Cargo Sales Charge were introduced as sustainable industry-funded mechanisms for financing the NCAA. NAMA was carved out of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), which previously performed air navigation and related services.

Today, FAAN remains a self-financing agency and receives no allocation from the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge.

You may be wondering why the pilots and engineers are upset about a change in how the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared. The proposed change would cut the NCAA's allocation from 56 per cent to 40 per cent and raise NAMA's share from 22 per cent to 40 per cent. This change threatens the NCAA's ability to fund its critical safety oversight activities.

The pilots and engineers are worried that a weak regulator will place lives at risk. They point out that the NCAA operates under severe financial pressure, making it difficult to adequately fund safety oversight activities. A review of the sharing formula for the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is a policy decision with potentially serious implications for aviation safety, regulatory independence, and the country's international standing.

Diepreye Saburugha and Celestine Chukwu warned that the persistence of a backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines to the NCAA had weakened the revenue pool available for distribution to all beneficiary agencies. They said the issue confronting the sector is not simply how the existing five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared, but the persistent backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines.

The pilots and engineers reject the proposed change in the sharing formula for the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge. They want to maintain the current allocation, which allows the NCAA to fund its safety oversight activities.