Former Vice Chairman of National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Otunba Segun Adewale popular called Aeroland, has enjoined the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to protect travel agencies in the country against all alleged extortions by airline operators.
Adewale, the Chief Executive Officer of the Aeroland Travels Limited, made the intervention, while speaking with newsmen in his office in Ikeja, Lagos.
The former NANTA Vice Chairman urged NCAA, as the regulatory body for aviation in Nigeria, to intervene and stop the current trend which he said had led to folding up of travel agencies and businesses over various frivolous penalties imposed on them, alleging that Turkish Airline recently slammed his firm with over N56million penalty and another over $8,000 penalty over unfounded reasons of alleged breach of regulation.
“NCAA should not be only there to collect fees from us. These are some of the things they must rise against by airlines we issue tickets for.
“We should not allow any airline to treat Nigerian business operators like slaves.
“NCAA ought to be a place of refuge for travel agencies when we have challenges just like the IATA protects airlines.
“NCAA must look into this situation and protect travel agencies.
“We believe since NCAA gives permission to airlines whether to fly or not, the airline will listen to the regulatory body to save businesses in Nigeria,” Adewale stated.
Speaking further, Adewale said he, as a licensed agent of IATA, carried out passenger ticket transactions belonging to Turkish Airlines between the periods of March and December 2023 and remit payments to the airline in United States Dollars (USD) without complaints or query by the firm.
He, however, said that the Airline in January 2024 caused an Advanced Debit Memo (ADM) in the sum of N56,728,861 and $8,321 respectively to be issued and charged against his IATA account.
Adewale said that, upon investigation, he discovered that the said sums purportedly represented sales restriction penalties for the ticket bookings made by Turkish Airlines between the periods of March and December 2023.
He stated that some of the tickets sold were through Turkish Airline’s Ghana Office and to his knowledge, there was no ticketing sales restriction policy disallowing the purchase of ticket bookings from the Ghana office, adding that there was no notice of any such sales restrictions given to his firm.
“We did not receive any notice of infringement of any rules or policies from the Turkish airlines and I am also not in breach of any of the provisions of IATA Global Rules and Regulations on ticket booking,” he said.
Adewale, a licensed agent and a member of International Air Transport Association (IATA) for over a period of 30 (thirty) years, while expressing concern, argued that the NCAA needed to do more in protecting businesses, noting sadly that some of his fellow colleagues could no long do business because of the activities of some of these airlines.
Adewale said some of these travel agencies had laid off all their staff and closed down because they could not pay the frivolous penalties by airlines on issuance of tickets.
“So many operators cannot speak out because no one fights principal; they have left the business because of this high-handedness.
“I must say that so many people have left this industry because they cannot pay some of these outrageous fines for minor infractions. Many businesses have collapsed.
“These frivolous penalties because of location where tickets was issued is another step to kill businesses. Players in the industry are bleeding,” he said.
Adewale maintained that travel agencies were permitted to issue tickets to anyone outside Nigeria so far it was done in dollars, not Naira, pointing out that airlines like Air France, KLM, and others were even encouraging travel agencies to do such transactions to boost the business.
“We are permitted to issues ticket to anyone outside Nigeria so far it is done in dollars, not Naira. We are keeping all known regulations. We don’t flout any rule,” he said.
Adewale, however, said that he had directed his lawyer to write the Airline to reverse the debits of N78 million.
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