The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA has disclosed that over N10billion worth of tickets was sold to air transport passengers between January and July 2015.

Speaking yesterday during the 21st annual League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents in Lagos on the theme, achieving a win –win aviation sector in Nigeria, the director general of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman stated that the amount comprised of 8,176,919,415.10 naira sold by international operators while 2,352,011,595.17 was generated from ticket sold on domestic flights.

Capt. Usman who was represented by the NCAA’s director of operations and Training, Capt. Sidi Abdullahi disclosed further that the total volume of passengers airlifted from January – July 2015 by the domestic operators is 6,061,740 passengers while their foreign counterpart airlifted 2,341,748 in the same period.

He stated further that the volume of passengers and the revenue generated would have been better if not for the 2015 transition.

The NCAA boss added that that air crashes had drastically reduced owing to wholesale and robust regulatory oversight by the NCAA even as he commended airlines for internalizing the authority’s regulations.

According to him, “our industry’s successes in successive ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audits and Security Audits are incontrovertible evidences that our air transport sector has witnessed increasing growth in recent years.
If you may recall, in the last ICAO Security Audit, Nigeria scored 96.45 percent. Besides, the American Transport Security Administration, TSA and European Union (EU) security experts have at various times scrutinised our security systems and we have excelled with minimal open items.
As a matter of fact, NCAA is the only Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the world that has four (4 nos) ICAO Certified Auditors on its staff list. These Auditors are now being invited by ICAO to join other experts to carry out Audits on other countries. One of them has just returned from an audit exercise in Tanzania and Mali”.

He called the airlines to enhance passengers’ welfare in their operations.
Capt. Usman said the future of aviation lies on passengers’ experience.

In his words, “against this background, it is pertinent to note that the future of aviation is now on passenger experience and aviation technology.”