In a statement on its website, airline Aero Contractors carried a statement in which it said all of its scheduled flights were “temporarily suspended” from September 1.
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The NCAA made this position known in a statement issued Thursday by its Director-General, Captain Muhtar Usman.
He explained that The First Nation Airlines halted operation because the airline is in the middle of an Engine Replacement Programme for one of its aircraft.
Mr. Usman said with another aircraft due for mandatory maintenance in line with NCAA’s regulations, the airline can not continue its operations.
“In these circumstances, these airlines clearly can not continue to undertake scheduled operations, hence the inevitable recourse to self-regulatory suspension”.
NCAA said the minimum acceptable number of aircraft in any airline’s fleet should be three.
The First Nation could not be reached for comment for this story.
Some hours after the suspension of Aero Contractors operations, another airline, First Nation also suspended its operations.
The statement stated that the airline planned the maintenance well ahead, “notified passengers while the flights are being now loaded online, effective from September 15”.
“In addition, everything has been put in place to continue to ensure compliance”, the statement added.
There seems to be more troubles for Aero Contractor, which announced the suspension of its operations on Wednesday over financial predicaments, as aviation unions took over the airline’s head office over the accusation that the airline management failed to follow the country’s labour laws.
The airline’s staff has been placed on indefinite leave of absence.
Mr. Balami, while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said the decision of the airline was necessary in order not to destroy the safety records it had maintained over the years.
This move has however angered the airline’s staff, who chose to go protest their employer’s decision.
He stated that some of the workers who were on night duty were locked in, pointing to the chairman of the union in Aero Contractors and others workers, who were watching event from the windows because they were locked in.
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Paying off the workers suggests that the airline may not come back if the government is already shopping for cash to pay off the over 1,200 workers who barri caded the airline’s headquarters at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos to ask for their severance benefits.
