NCAA to Sanction Foreign Airlines over Failure to Automate Payment Platform

By Chinedu Eze

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has threatened to sanction foreign airlines in the country that are yet to automate and integrate into its platform for the remittance of the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge/Cargo Sales Charge (TSC/CSS)

The General Manager, Public Affairs, NCAA, Sam Adurogboye said the agency had given the affected airlines up to December 2018 to migrate to the new system.

NCAA also said it had dispatched a letter to that effect to the affected airlines which are 30 in all, on behalf of  the Director General NCAA, Captain Muktar Usman.

Adurogboye, said despite regular meetings, reminder letters and follow-up by the government agency to the management of the affected airlines, they refused to comply with the federal government  directives on Aviation Revenue Automation Project (ARAP) and abide by the provisions in the BASA  between Nigeria and their respective countries.

The affected airlines included Lufthansa Airlines and all African carriers operating to Nigeria under the existing Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA).

According to the NCAA spokesman, the federal government had come up with the introduction of the Aviation Revenue Automation Project for revenue collection to engender data integrity, transparency, transaction accountability and control of revenue to the Authority in 2011 which was at no cost to airline operators.

Adurogboye said that there have been appreciable and commendable high level of compliance by domestic airlines which stood at 97 per cent of the current domestic air transport operations and appealed to other domestic operators yet to join to do so by working with First Bank of Nigeria (FBN)/Avitech for immediate and automatic processing and implementation of the project or face sanction