The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has suspended all the wet-leased aircraft under United Nigeria Airlines.
The development may not be unconnected with the incident involving the airline’s Lagos/Abuja-bound flight, which was mistakenly diverted to Asaba based on filing the wrong flight plan to the pilot in command by the flight dispatcher.
The airline, in its reaction, attributed the incident to bad weather.
While the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has since summoned all the aviation agencies, the NCAA has been reported to have suspended all the wet-leased aircraft in the fleet of the airline.
The suspension of all wet lease planes may have been taken to verify why the pilot could not discover that he headed in the wrong direction.
A wet-leased aircraft arrangement between an airline and the operator allows the aircraft owner to provide the aircraft to the owner and maintenance and crew members to the lessee.
Under a dry lease arrangement, the lessor only provides the aircraft, while the lessee is required to ensure it has its own crew.
The NCAA must have taken the action to suspend all the wet-leased aircraft in the fleet of United Nigeria based on the fact that the pilot and the crew in command of the said plane were non-Nigerians who may not be familiar with the flight paths in the country; hence, the mistake.
The regulatory body was said to have informed the airline of the decision on Monday in a letter communicated to the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the airline.
Following the development, all the wet-leased aircraft in the airline fleet would remain suspended pending the investigation into the Sunday incident.