There’s been a lot of stories about the Nigerian Aviation sector, from the suspension of the Nigerian Airline to the construction of Lagos and Abuja Airport and the recent conflict among the union over pension and other major challenges the sector is facing.
Airline Operator Mohammed Tukur was on the show (telephone call) to discuss these issues and way forward with the ladies of Your View.
Morayo asked what the progress was with the concessioning of Lagos-Abuja international airport that was approved by the federal government in 2017. Mohammed responded that the federal government is working on it to ensure that we have standard international airports. In his words:
“already the federal government is making all necessary arrangement to make sure that the airport is concessioned, it’s one of the best things that can happen to a country, when you go to London and other parts of the world you will find out that most of the airport are already concessioned by the federal governor of those country. If you want to have a very good service you need to give out for other people to run it”
Is this concession going to be in full or a partial one and how will regulating be for us to ensure good services? Nyma asked
Mohammed replied that the plan is for it to be a total concession and government is also meant to regulate by working together with the private operators.
“The security will be manned by the government as we can’t hand over the security of the airport to any individual.” Mohammed said
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Recently, the operations of airlines at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammad Airport, Lagos were interrupted for over four hours on Friday by members of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria.
According to reports, the unions’ leaders got to the airport early in the morning and ordered airline employees to stop working.
Commenting on this, Mohammed said;
“The chairman aviation service is not aware of what the management did in that terminal that they sacked about 27 staff which had already unionize with the union.
The current MD does not want to have a union because he had a serious problem with them in Asaba a long time ago. When he was employed in mm2, they looked at him as someone who is against labour.
He continued that they had never explained to Dr Wale Babalakin whatever transpired between them on that issue.
A meeting was called on the same day to resolve the issue and the 27 staff recalled back as the management have the right to post anybody to anywhere they want.
On Mohammed’s take on unionism, he said:
frankly speaking a person has no reason or any other parastatal has no reason to stop any member from joining the union, reason; the money they are afraid to be giving the union is not theirs but from their salaries, what you need do is to call your staff, explain to them that this is what you are earning in this time where people are looking for money to put in their pockets they are going to remove x amount from your account and give to this people.
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Watch full video below:
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