President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made landmark concessions and granted debt waivers to domestic airlines in order to keep them afloat following the impact on them by the rising cost of Jet A1.
The Minister of Aerospace Development and Aviation, Festus Keyamo (SAN), made this known during a stakeholders meeting.
The meeting in Abuja on Wednesday was attended by airline operators, oil marketers, and a delegation from the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
It was convened in response to the sharp increase in aviation fuel price, which operators said had become unsustainable, threatening to shut down operations.
Keyamo said at the meeting: “I had the privilege of meeting Mr. President to brief him about the meeting.
“And Mr. President mandated us to quickly bring a request to him.
“The first request that he will consider and grant is a generous discount on the debts the airlines are owing the aviation agencies: NAMA (Nigerian Airspace Management Agency), FAAN (Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria), NCAA (Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority), and so on and so forth.
“The percentage of discounts and all that, Mr. President will decide.
“He is so concerned about what is happening.
“He asked me in particular to express his deep appreciation to the airline operators.
“He knows the conditions under which we operate.
“The second request Mr. President has asked that we should bring for him to consider fully and grant is that he wants to set up a committee to address the issue of levies, taxes, and fees on domestic tickets once and for all.
“This request has been on for a long time.
“So Mr. President will put the team together, and he’ll give them a deadline to report to him as quickly as possible on the government fees and charges and levies that we can remove from domestic tickets for now to give respite to Nigerians who are also buying their tickets.
“And, of course, he’ll consider a date for the airline operators to meet him one-on-one for the other more robust discussions regarding access to capital and all of that.”
The Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, who responded on behalf of the airline operators, told Keyamo to tell President Tinubu not to decide the percentage of discount to give the airline operators, but to rather approve a total waiver of all the debts they owe.
Onyema also asked the President for a suspension of further payment by airline operators until the Strait of Hormuz reopens.
He commended Tinubu for being a “businessman president who is very, very responsive”, recalling how he removed the 4 percent Free on Board (FOB) for airlines within 24 hours.
He also asked him to look into the cost of acquisition of funding for airlines.
He said all over the world, they acquire at 3 percent.
