Are many complaints received and how many resolved?
We are able to provide that information real time and I will tell you why, our work is very manual and so its usually a month end calculation that I get how many complaints came in segmented based on industry and how many were resolved and how many are still pending but in the coming weeks, we are deploying an automation system which is one of the project I started with very early after I got on the job and that automation system will give us real time data so if you are asking me this question this time next month I will be able to look here right on my IPad and tell you the status but I will tell you that looking from the last report the complaints we have received have gone up easily, I will say 40%, our resolution rates has gone up to, we have resolved well up to 78% within same reporting period , the resolution will be ultimately more than 78% but within the reporting period as at the time you start and end a reporting period we at 78%, our benchmark is to be able to resolve at least 96% of complaints within any reporting period.
Are always in communication with the NCAA CPD in the event of a problem?
We are always in communication, every statements that the CPC has made in respect to what happened in Abuja, Ghana, port harcourt, the statements were made after discussions with at least one person or the other in the NCAA, so I don’t see where the usurping is at all, I am a protector of consumers, I have a mandate, it’s not even a question or discretion, I have a mandate and am going to fulfill that mandate and whatever it takes to fulfill that mandate including this collaboration I will.
You are talking about a department of an agency, I am speaking of an agency of it own and so there is no usurping going on. Secondly, within ICAO standards and recommended practices, there is nothing absolutely no conflict in any law in Nigeria with ICAO recommended practices or ICAO standards, there is nothing in the Consumer Protection Council Act that creates a conflict and there is nothing that the CPC is doing or intends to do with respect to consumer protection that conflicts with ICAO standards and recommended practices.
The NCAA is at the airport the CPC is not, why?
You are right, the NCAA is at airport, we are not but Is it only at the airport the consumers can complain about violation of passenger right, so your flight is delayed and you are unhappy about it you must file that complaint at the airport, your flight is cancelled and the flight cannot operate and you go back and must wait at the airport and file that complaint at the airport, you you believe you want to get a refund from an airline you must go to an airport? I think limiting the channels for filing complaints to NCAA man channels itself is a disservice to consumers, I think every available I mean we are talking about consumers here and they are suppose to be the king we now want to place a burden on them to enforce their rights that they must go to a certain location or person? We have an obligation to make sure that as many possible channels as possible for them to express but for a matter of fact for a failed complaint resolution system, the complaints should ordinarily automatically go to service providers. Regulatory authorities are suppose to enforce process, one of the big things I continue to say all the companies is that, the government is subsidizing your business and that should not be because resolving the complaints of your passengers/customers is part of what you have built into your business and it goes to your bottom line but you are now turning the CPC into multi-company customer care hotline, so we would move that and change it.
It is the airline that has a way and sell ticket to you anywhere, anyhow and that you have those same channels to address problems and the regulators come in, so it’s not a competition between regulators, is not a question of how many channels does the regulator have, how many channels does CPC has and these are policy issues from the CPC standpoint that are within the mandate of the CPC unless the argument now is let go and improve customer access for this industry but you airlines you don’t need to do what other industry are doing to improve customer care because they are ICAO standards and we cannot get into this space that’s the flip side of that argument by those who are making that its, so if I mandate companies to set up their portal and set up mechanisms and channels which we hope to get to and say as part of your advertisement, as part of moving your product you must tell people this is the mechanism for complaining and you must start that mechanism with the appropriate personnel so that they can resolve complaints, I say except in the aviation industry because there is an ICAO standards in that area and I say passengers continue in your lifestyle but everybody else make sure you sort things out that’s the flip side, so it would not work but as far as whether we are collaborating, we absolutely are.
We we wrote the passenger bill of rights, I was part and parcel of it, when we wrote it, we say NCAA enforce this thing, make sure that all airlines print, this thing, put it in their offices, check- in and on their website, this is the way to educate people of their rights but it hasn’t been done. So if somebody now take their own resources to go and print it and give it to people, ultimately the whole purpose of this same thing is so that this same people we know about it.
Can your enlighten us on your resolve mechanism, do you sanction, like Arik that had an incident it was after 4 days through the social media that everyone got to know, is there any sanction?
I will take the first one whether Arik put out a public statement of the incident, I am not sure that the specifically violated any law by not making a public statement, I am not sure honestly, however, where we are going now with regulation is that we are going to a point where we are saying now with the regulation is that full disclosure of any material fact that can modify consumer behaviour, we are going to use it in e-commerce, warrants and guarantees I don’t now how it will play out here but its a point that you have made that we will be thinking about on whether there is a mandated requirement and there is non, you need to sit with the aviation authorities and say let’s look at what is happening in other places is there a mandatory requirements for airlines to put out information about incidents and its a requirement in other places we are not capturing this is why this kind of engagement is important.
Our complaints mechanism, there are different tools we use, we way the system works is that when we receive a complain, we engage the target of the complain which is the company that is complained against and let them know this is what they complained against you, a few things can happen in that space once you engage them, they can look at at and say alright we can sort thing out and they sort it out another thing can be well we don’t agree this is what happened and that comes back to us and so one or two things can happen when that dispute crystallizes like that we can see if the two sides are willing to mediate and so let’s sit in the middle of this and see if we can get you guys to agree, as the authority, we look like a judge and says this is what you’ve said, anything you want to say and then based on the facts, we will make a determination and enter it as an order that must be complied with or you can challenge the order in court. The third leg is that sometimes we would send a complaint to full scale investigation even if you agree, even if the company say we will resolve it to the two of you say we want to do mediation we might chose that No, we want this to go to investigation, we do that in cases where we feel there is a pervasive problem in the market and this complaint or this investigation is vital to addressing the problem across the board not just one individual complaints so our investigative capacity is used for more industry wide intervention.
What is your response time?
Our current response time for the manual complains, we try to respond within 7 days because its manual and for complains that come on our portal,typically we try to issue a response ticket as soon as possible within 48 hours. Then the resolution process, the response depend on the complaints and how it will be resolved, sometimes the resolution process will be resolved within 3-4 days sometimes in months depending on how contentious the issue is and then how many parties will be part of the resolution, sometimes you need to engage the electricity regulator, the civil aviation regulator, communication regulator, so all of that you now have to take on their own additional internal response mechanism. For instance you have a regulator who says all they want from us is just to refer and once you refer, they don’t want us to be involved again in the resolution process but that’s not the best approach but even if you adopt that approach you now see we have absolutely no control over the response timeline for the resolution of that but in the manual we try to do within the 7 days once they come on the portal within 48 hours.
Are you leveraging on technology?
Where we are going, those response will be far more quicker, in a matter of fact, we are trying to make sure that, if you file your complaints electronically, on the same day in less than 24 hours you get your initial response and we will set it up in such a way that there will be a portal where you can follow what is happening, you can literally pick your ticket number, go online and see exactly what is happening, if its still pending or a decision has been made and you didn’t get it or whatever the case maybe, that’s where we are going, we are leveraging on technology as possible as we can
From the funding standpoint, the CPC is not by its nature ordinarily an income generating agency and its should generate revenue but that must never be one of its critical objective, one thing is that many people has proposed ways to improve the company’s resolution mechanism including SMS, USSB code and charging the consumer for each complaints they file, somebody is coming to complain of being displeased about something, the least we can do is to make sure that process cost them absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing even if they send us SMS’ s, we will reverse the cost and we will carry the cost because we cannot impose any cost of complaint resolution on consumers. The only other way we can make some money, its very tricky, for instance, you make companies register promotions for a very token amount of money which itself not just a revenue making thing but a cost of the administrative process. It would have been a great opportunity to make money but imagine when a company wants to run a promotion typically is that they want to do a price reduction in something to attract consumers, so if we make that a big ticket item to spend money on us, at the end of the day, these companies are not willing to past their profit, they will pass it onto those consumers that we sought out to protect, so it just seem like something that draws full cycle and so we are struggling with that and just trying to make sure that the cost of that is really just don’t impart the promotion itself, so we are mindful of using that as a key revenue stream. The only other way where there can be significant revenue stream is in fines and penalties, we do not shy away from it but we are slowing walking away to a point where the jurisdictional space for those fines and penalties is sufficiently clear and theses are things that were introduced by the Council recently even before I got there and the industry resisted including challenging those powers in court I know the judicial process takes a while, we are confident on how it will end and so we are getting to that point where it will become institutionalized, once the judicial process ends or new legislation modifies, the current legislation, the ambiguity will be clarified and we will be in a better position.
Can you really say that the NCAA is carrying out its duties optimally to protect the Nigerian air travelers?
One, going back to ICAO standards and recommended practices, am not even in a position to evaluate the regulator because those are exactly the things what ICAO standards are all about but I will say to the FAA has evaluated that regulator, IOSA has evaluated that regulator and one of the key components of receiving certification of those standards is that the regulator is autonomous, has sufficient competent and skilled personnel in sufficient numbers and that their protocols and regulations and their procedures sufficient and carried out and they also look at the airlines to see that they are in compliance, and so for me when the authorities that are position for that purpose all over the world, the CAT1is the best anyone can get if they can repeatedly give to us and comfortable that the regulator is doing his work. And if you are asking also, are there things we can do differently or we can do more, am sure the regulator will tell you too yes, I just told you that what we in the CPC can do more and do better in what we are doing also to improve and when we accomplish all the things we set out to do and there will still be a place for us to improve, whether it is safety or protection, its a journey, there is no destination, we just keep travelling and continuous improvement must be the mantra that we adopt.
What is your assessment of the aviation industry?
Assessing the aviation industry in Nigeria, I think as an industry from its potential, it’s under performing, perhaps not a reflection on people or individuals or even institutions, its purely a statement of what it can contribute to the GDP and what its contributing to GDP, so I think its under performing, it can perform far better. I have far bigger, better market that many, many countries where their aviation is lot more, their activities is much higher than ours.
Some of the people out there are doing the best they possibly can but the industry as a whole from what it can contribute to the GDP is under performing now we can begin to break each of those issues and find who is dropping the ball that’s a totally different ball game, it can do a lot more in traffic, it can do a lot more in revenue.
What’s your outlook on the aviation sector?
Well from the Consumer Protection standpoint, my outlook for the aviation sector is to develop consumer confidence in the sector and encourage and demanding the relevant players, service providers, travel agents, airport authorities, people who sell anything to provide better consumer services do that consumers use the services even more and that’s will improve the whole industry.
