The Federal government has been urged to release the much advertised palliatives to the aviation industry to help save struggling domestic airlines.
The President, Rotary Club of Falomo, Peter Nwaochie who made this call in an interview at the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria shortly after presenting sets of wheelchairs to the organization said, all domestic airlines in the country were struggling to make ends meet thus the astronomical rise in airfares.
Mr. Nwaochie, who was an aide to Mrs. Kema Chikwe a former minister of aviation during President Obasanjo administration noted that, the current pandemic raving the world had greatly affected the aviation industry bringing it to a sorry state in Nigeria.
He regretted that presently nothing had been done in form of palliatives to rescue the struggling domestic airlines, adding that funds promised airlines and the sector should be made available to them to cushion the effect of the pandemic.
“We are living at unusual time and the aviation industry is very strategic, it is a catalyst for development in any modern economy, but in Nigeria today aviation is in a sorry state. Airline operators are talking of palliatives, support, nothing is being done”.
According to him, the position of the government revealed that they were not ready to do anything, “The government is not ruling pigs, goats but human human beings”.
Nwaochie noted that most Nigerians were not happy with the sky rocketing airfares in the country, calling for an urgent arrest to the ugly trend, “most people are not happy, aviation fuel has gone up 100 percent”.
He commended the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority NCAA for carrying out its oversight function diligently which had led to minimal crashes in the industry.
