The Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, has called on the Federal Government to halt the mandatory revenue deductions imposed on key aviation agencies, warning that stripping them of their internally generated funds is crippling safety-critical infrastructure and threatening the survival of domestic airlines.
Speaking at the 30th Annual Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) in Lagos, Onyema stated that the statutory remittance of between 25 and 50 percent of revenues collected by agencies such as the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) starves them of the capital required to upgrade airports and maintain global safety standards.
The Air Peace boss argued that domestic carriers are not opposed to funding government bodies, but stressed that the revenues collected must be retained within the aviation ecosystem to avert rapid infrastructural decay.
According to him, the current deduction policy has financially handicapped airport authorities, leaving them unable to acquire essential operational assets, including modern bird deterrence systems and runway maintenance technologies.
Onyema lamented that airlines bear the brunt of these systemic shortfalls in the form of operational delays, safety hazards, and exorbitant maintenance costs.
Citing an example, Onyema disclosed that a single bird strike incident involving an Air Peace aircraft in Abuja left the carrier with an emergency repair invoice of $1.85 million from foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
He emphasized that when poorly funded agencies fail to meet infrastructural demands, passengers unfairly blame the airlines for flight disruptions and cancellations.
The Air Peace Chairman urged the central government to allow FAAN and the NCAA to retain their full earnings for reinvestment into sector development, insisting that protecting regulatory and operational revenues is paramount to safeguarding air travel in Nigeria.