The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika says the pilots of the aircraft impounded for illegal flight Operations have been quarantined for 14 days at an isolation centers in Lagos.
The aircraft belonging to Flairjet, an embraer Legacy 600 aircraft with registration number G-PRFX was impounded at the weekend for violation of general Aviation flight Operations.
The Minister who disclosed this at the Presidential Task Force PTF, on COVID19 briefing in Abuja today said, FlairJet had applied for humanitarian flights during the pandemic which was approved as essential flight but sadly, they turned the operation to commercial, operating in and out of the country with passengers.”The pilots are all British nationals and are on 14 day isolation in Lagos while investigation is ongoing. “
The Minister during the briefing, apologized for the error on his official twitter handle where he said the aircraft impounded belonged to Flair Aviation instead of FlairJet.
On the issue of demurrage which has pitched cargo clearing agents against the ground handling companies, Skyward Aviation Handling Company, SAHCO and the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company NAHCO, the Minister said discussions are still ongoing with the handling companies to accede to the demands of the agents for a 100% waiver.
According to the Minister, the handling companies have reached an agreement for a 80% waiver with both SAHCO and NAHCO but still negotiating for the remaining 20%.
“On the issue of demurrage, the two private entity at the airport, SAHCO and NAHCO aviance are in charge of handling demurrage not FAAN or the Ministry of Aviation but as regulator, we tried to intervene for peace.”
” It is the intent of the government to continue to intervene to get, perhaps zero demurrage in due cause,” he said
