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NCAA to clampdown on 400 ‘fake’ travel agencies
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has raised concerns over more than 400 travel agencies operating in the country without the requisite local licences to operate.
It also said that just about 157 travel agencies were in the registry of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) while over 600 were doing business in the country.
This was disclosed on Thursday by the Director of Air Transport Regulation, NCAA, Group Capt. Edem Oyo-Ita (retd.), while speaking at the Quarterly Business Breakfast Meeting organised by the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative in Lagos.
He said, “We take the blame that we may be poor in our regulations in the downstream sector of aviation which has not been adequately taken care of in the past years but it is mandatory that all travel agencies must be registered with the NCAA and NANTA.
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“The International Air Transport Association has about 600 travel agents; NANTA has 200 members while NCAA has only 157 registered members in our record. This gathering is a wakeup call for every travel agent operating in the industry to register with the NCAA and NANTA.”
NCAA further directed all duly registered registered travel agencies to begin to display their certificates of registration or licences in all their outlets to curtail the activities of quacks.
Also speaking, the President of NANTA, Mr Bernard Bankole, challenged the regulator for neglecting the downstream sector of the industry.
He lamented the infiltration of unregistered travel agencies, which, according to him, had become a threat to the aviation business.
“The NCAA is paying so much attention to the airlines, believing that we are not much of a problem until they begin to notice fraudulent activities. This is a major problem that we must address,” he said.
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