Nigerian govt to hold flight simulation on Saturday, hands-in restart plan

The Nigerian government on Monday declared that it would conduct a simulation trial of domestic flight operations at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos on Saturday ahead of reopening of Nigeria’s airspace to commercial flights.

Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Avation, said in Abuja yesterday that airfares would not be significantly high as speculated based on arrangements to effect the social distancing rule on board.

This is coming on the heels of the announcement by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority that it would hand in the aviation restart plan to the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 on Wednesday.

“Well, that (airfare hike) may not necessarily be the case, because as I speak to you, day in day out, we’ve been meeting with stakeholders in the industry to find out how best to open the industry.

“So we are doing everything to ensure that tickets’ prices are not skyrocketed. They may be different but they will not be something that passengers cannot afford,” Sirika said.

Meanwhile, Musa Nuhu, the Director-General of the NCAA, disclosed at a stakeholders’ forum that the aviation sector restart plan would be submitted to the PTF on Wednesday 24th June.

Read also: NCAA calls off planned resumption of domestic flight

“We are yet to get there but we are pretty close. The plan is that by Wednesday, we will submit our report to the PTF. I reiterate, we are pretty close,” he said.

He stated that the NCAA did not need to have all the airports, airlines and ground handlers ready before reopening the system.

According to Nuhu, stopping commercial flight operations has reduced the NCAA’s revenue by between 90 and 95 per cent.

We are almost ready. Like I said earlier, not all the airlines and airports have to be necessarily ready before the restart. If anything goes wrong, the NCAA will be held responsible.

“Sometime this week, the proposed restart date will be made known. If the airports get it right, the airlines job will be made easier. The airlines that have disinfected their aircraft should show proof to NCAA.”

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