Capt Chris Ona Najomo, Director General, Civil Aviation, DGCA, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA
Due to the statutory 5% Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) revenue that the federal government and its agencies have severally and collectively demonstrated gross inadequacy/inability to collect, the workers have taken it upon themselves to intervene hence, they have put all the concerned scheduled airline operators in Nigeria on a 14 day ultimatum to either remit the TSC, which they had collected and already in their coffers for ages past, or have their entire flight operations dragged into “industrial comatose”.
In a joint statement by the Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN, and the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, they argued that continuing to withhold the revenue accrued from TSC is tantamount to a systematic compromise of air safety in Nigeria, which the Renewed Hope Agenda of the federal government can ill afford.
The unions, who in their media statement described the airlines’ refusal to remit the fund as a compromise of air safety, added that “The continued non-remittance of these statutory funds is grossly unacceptable because it undermines the financial stability of the Agencies whose statutory, safety-critical functions depend on these remittances”.
The airline operators were reminded “that TSC is not a profit, but resources meant to facilitate safe air hence, the Agencies are mere cost recovery organisations”.
“This is thereby creating avoidable financial constraints that negatively impact the effective discharge of their various statutory responsibilities and the smooth operation of the aviation sector in general”, the unions claimed.
Reiterating the unions’ notion, the statement noted, “We wish to remind all that the 5% Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) is a statutory obligation established by law, with the necessary backing of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, and not a discretionary payment”.
The statement also argued that “International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Doc 9734 – Safety Oversight Manual, Parts A and B, provide a clear need for a sustainable and stable source of financing for the agencies”.
And added that, “The most important of these sources is TSC, which air passengers pay for in their tickets and which is collected on behalf of the aviation agencies by these airlines”.
However, the unions added a caveat thus, “failure to comply with this demand within the stipulated period (Beginning Thursday, 9th July 2026) will leave the Aviation Unions with no alternative but to employ every means necessary to ensure that the entire Nigerian aviation sector does not go aground because of air safety issues necessitated by the actions and inactions of the entities stifling the Agencies of their required operational funds”.
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