“NCAA Needs to Protect Consumers against Airlines”

Chinedu Eze

The immediate past President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) and the Managing Director of Finchglow Group, Bankole Bernard has called on the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to strengthen its consumer protection department to protect travellers from exploitation by airlines.

Bernard said that since the department was downgraded to a department from a directorate, it has become ineffective in its duty of protecting travellers so they have to go outside the industry to seek for redress.

Bernard who is also the Chairman Airline and Passenger Joint Committee (APJC) who spoke to THISDAY on Wednesday said that the regulatory authority is in the best position to protect the passengers.

“We know that there is consumer protection body for the country but NCAA is responsible for protecting the interest of air travellers and that was why when they collapsed the consumer directorate in NCAA, it was with the position that somebody will be responsible. Because everywhere around the world, the CAA of every country is autonomous and they operate without fear and favour for them to be able to discharge their duties efficiently, according to the laid down rules.

“So, who is protecting the consumer? Nobody is really protecting the consumer because even the consumer unit that has been set up, they are overwhelmed. Go to their office you will see a lot of cases that they cannot even attend to. So, I believe that NCAA needs to bring back to life the consumer protection unit that will be extremely active under a particular directorate. This is because it is very necessary. Aviation industry is a very peculiar one; you cannot classify entire consumer needs and leave it under a general department. It is not possible. There are rules, guiding consumer protection.  They are constantly being violated every day. When flights are delayed, nothing happens. They get away with it. Nobody, even NCAA last time in Kano, their staff were delayed for about six to eight hours. Nothing happened after. So abnormality has now become the norm. Who is going to bring us back to where we should be?”

He said that there was no need for passengers to take their issues to court if there is effective consumer protection in NCAA.

“That is exactly what we are saying, how it got outside in the first place is a wrong approach. There is a law protecting the aviation industry and CAA must have the autonomy to take certain decision checkmating these airlines where they have violated the rules. So, the CAA needs to be empowered to function based on the laws that is backing in it. And what is happening is that quite a lot of people have seen the weakness and everybody is just doing whatever they like. And until we get to that point where we allow the CAA to operate autonomously within the armbit of the law, for them to do what should be done in the aviation industry, we are going to continue like this.

If the airlines wake up tomorrow again and say that the cost of fuel has gone up and premised on that they want to increase the fare, there is absolutely nothing you and I can do. You and I will never go to Abuja by road because it is not safe. We would rather fly. And if we are going to fly, we are left with little or no choice because the airlines have formed an alliance, which is not allowed. They are allowed to have an association, and the association is not to discuss fare, it is to discuss their welfare and how they operate within the industry but not discussed fare or general pricing as it were, which is violation. But the question is, are they even aware of what they can discuss and what they can’t? Until we get to that point where consumers are not violated simply because the airline lacks the knowledge of what they can do and what they cannot, we are going to continue talking about this,” Bernard said.

He said that there has been tremendous improvement in passenger throughput since the downgrade of COVID-19 protocol and although traffic is not yet at pre-COVID-19 era, the industry is moving fast.

“We are not back but we are moving fast towards improving passenger traffic. We are already doing about 75 per cent to 80 per cent of 2019 figures, both local and foreign, which is quite commendable. As a matter of fact, evidence showed that Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in terms of growth post COVID-19. So it means that we quickly adapted to the new and we are already moving, which is quite good for us and good for the industry.

“However, the industry deserves more than the fact that when we see that such a thing has happened, there are two ways that airlines make their money. They make that money via volume at their yield. So the question is this, the moment the volume increases then there should be some sort of reduction in fares, so that people will be encouraged to fly more and you still make your money. It is when you find out that the volume is going down that you apply the use of yield so that you can still stay profitable. So we want NCAA to look into the fares filed by these foreign airlines as well. Is it competitive? Or they are just taking advantage of the system? If it is competitive then it is all well and good. And again from what I have gathered some of these airlines have not really increased their fares. It is just that our currency has depreciated against theirs because they are really not getting money from CBN like they should,” he said.