By Dickson Omobola
National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, has kicked against a bill before the National Assembly proposing a review of the sharing formula for the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge, TSC, which would cut the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA’s, allocation from 56 per cent to 40 per cent and raise the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA’s, share from 22 per cent to 40 per cent.
Chairman of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Diepreye Saburugha, and Secretary of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Celestine Chukwu, warned that it is a policy decision with potentially serious implications for aviation safety, regulatory independence and the country’s international standing.
Saburugha and Chukwu, in a statement, said the issue confronting the sector is not simply how the existing five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared, but the persistent backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines.
According to them, the failure by many operators to fully remit Ticket Sales Charges collected from passengers had significantly weakened the revenue pool available for distribution to all beneficiary agencies.
