Irukera: Airlines Must Give Specific Reasons For Flight Delays Instead Of Blaming Infrastructure Deficit

The Executive Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Babatunde Irukera, has said that there has to be more transparency from the major players and stakeholders in the aviation industry, saying that airlines must give specific reasons for delays and cancellations.

Irukera made this statement during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Sunday, where he also said that the FCCPC has launched a thorough investigation into the astronomical prices of air fares, while saying that it was, however, a complex process.

The FCCPC CEO spoke on the announcement from the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, who said that airlines must publish reasons for cancellations and delays to the public or pay a fine. Irukera said, “We welcome the minister’s courage. I think it’s been one of the missing pieces in handling the consumer protection framework in aviation.”

Irukera noted that before his role in the FCCPC, he had worked in the aviation sector, leading him to say, “One of the biggest challenges that we had in aviation is that businesses are able to push back some of the problems to the government.”

He went on to say, “Hearing the aviation minister himself reading the riot act and saying, we will commit to unlocking whatever your infrastructure challenges are, the parts that we can do, but we would insist that you also- I think that’s one of the most important things. I think that transparency is very, because right now, it’s easy for everybody to be irresponsible and to blame it on a general problem- operational reasons, infrastructure deficit. But just promoting transparency and saying, no, when you’re late, we want to know exactly why. Let’s get to the bottom of it, and let’s be able to call you out. I completely agree with that.”

Irukera then said, “I have repeatedly said to some of the people in the aviation parastatals that we that are on course, put boards in the airport. We will do a scorecard for each airline on a weekly basis. All you need to do is give what the time they depart, what time they arrive, and the schedules they’re selling. Once we have that, we will just put it out there. We’re not naming or shaming anybody, we are just providing data, and people will be able to see what percentage of timeliness each of these airlines is.”

He said that transparency in the aviation industry will take away the rhetoric that flight delays and cancellations are always due to operational problems or infrastructure deficit.

He continued by saying, “We must match the fleets to the schedules they sell. We must not allow airlines to sell tickets on flights that are improbable. And we must look at their redundancy plans. Yes, you have limited capacity, that’s understandable. You shouldn’t operate beyond your capacity. But by the same token, you must have a redundancy plan. You must have a way to make sure you can manage your schedule when an unexpected event occurs.”

The EVP then noted that the FCCPC had begun an investigation into the high rise in the prices of air fares as he said, “The cost of flying is astronomical. When I spoke last week, I said we were opening a very broad investigation into fares and the cost of flights, and we’ve been working at this for months. The airline fare industry is one of the most complex to investigate, and I can say that that role is to facilitate, not impede, business… The number is high but determining that it is excessive and unjust takes a process. Certain people say, we used to fly to London at a thousand dollars, now it’s four thousand dollars. You have to go through a painstaking process. Revenue management in aviation is complex, and so we have to go through that.”

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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