The Minister of Aviation, Festo Keyamo said aviation regulators will begin forcing airlines to compensate passengers for delayed or canceled flights starting in January 2024.
The minister revealed this on Tuesday when he appeared before the Joint Committee on Aviation of the National Assembly to defend his ministry’s budget for fiscal year 2024.
Lagos Reporters reported that more than half of domestic flights in Nigeria between January and March were delayed, according to data from the regulator, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). Of the total 18,288 domestic flights during the period, 10,128 were delayed, accounting for 55 percent.
On Tuesday, Keyamo also assured that a list of airlines that delayed or canceled flights will be published in the media every week as part of the compensation plan.
“I have called for a satisfactory commission from the client regarding the treatment of Nigerians. I’m back on the committee and that’s the concern that bothers me.
“And I said this in my last speech during our stakeholders meeting in Lagos and our retreat in Warri.
“I said weekly, please publish the list of airlines that do not fly on the scheduled date, canceled flights, delayed flights, how many hours they were delayed, if there was compensation and actions that you took as a regulator against these airlines. We will start that in January.”
The Minister of Aviation proposed that as part of the compensation, a discount be deducted from airline tickets for airlines that delayed passengers.
“For every delay, there is a report, an actual report from the regulator. What did you do? Did they pay compensation? And if they didn’t pay compensation, we have said that the other way to get compensation if they can return cash is that once the passenger buys the next ticket, they should be given a refund. That passenger should receive a 50 or 40 percent refund because there should be a refund.”
Airport Concession
Keyamo said the best option to develop Nigerian airports is through concessions to investors.
“Private partnership must come to the fore. It’s not even negotiable, we don’t have the funds to do it (manage the airports).
“In concession, we will give the people what we want, not what they want. We have to decide what we want. We will all agree on the nature and quality of the grant.
“We want to move forward, but I want us all to sit down and look for the best hands. We should go to the ends of this earth to seek the best and best for Nigeria and elevate our offering to level one, not level two. Top-notch investors should come to Nigeria and build our gateway for us,” the minister said.