SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has stated that domestic flights will no longer resume on June 21 as planned.
This was revealed by the Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika on Thursday during the briefing by members of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja stating that a new date would be fixed after a report is submitted the Task Force for review next week.
The minister, who was represented by the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu, said the ministry had developed and sent a circular to all stakeholders to develop a restart plan and submit to the regulatory body for review and approval depending on the business of the service providers.
According to him, the restart plan is meant to cover airworthiness, operations, passenger licencing, aviation security, safety management system, consumer protection, and air transport regulation.
“Currently, a lot of service providers have provided their restart plans and the plans are supposed to be reviewed by NCAA; the regulator of the industry. We are going to review the documents and if we are happy with the documents, then we will go to each organisation to verify what they have given as their restart plan,” Sirika said.
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He explained that the public health corridor concept was developed in collaboration with national health authorities including the Federal Ministry of Health, NCDC and Port Health Services in addition to guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international organisations.
“The Civil Aviation Authority despite all pressures coming from all quarters will not approve the start of operations at any date until we are sure and confirm that we are ready to start in a safe, secure, organise and efficient manner,” Sirika said.
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