The Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC) is working in strategic partnership with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in a bid to address the continuous rise in airfares as well as the growing incidence of negligence on consumer rights in the Nigerian aviation sector .
Speaking recently in Abuja while playing host to the Director General of NCAA, Captain Nuhu Musa, the Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, stated that the aviation sector was one of the industry with the highest number of consumer complaints.
Irukera explained that “ aviation ordinarily would have been the preferred choice of travel because of its timeliness and safety. But in Nigeria today, it has by far become the most preferred method of travel not just for timeliness and safety comparative advantage that the sector offers, but rather because of the depressed safety standards outside the aviation sector.
“When you have an industry of this nature, it becomes critical to nationhood not just because of its contribution to the GDP, but because of its value to the society at large”
” If we needed any evidence of this, what has happened in the past week is the exact example. Immediately the information about the increase in airfare came to us, the volume of responses from the public were overwhelming”.
“ And the despondence we have seen underscores while aviation sector has become the backbone of the nation’s life” he stated.
The Executive Vice Chairman further explained that “ in the past days, two sensitive issues have been noted which come under the umbrella of fairness to consumers.
