The National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) has called on the minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika to urgently review his Aviation Road Map.
The union attributed the call for the review of the road map to the need for significant adjustments to harmonize the projects with current realities in the world of aviation and national interest.
Speaking during the May 1st, 2022 Workers’ Day in Lagos, the National President of NUATE, Comrade Ben K. Nnabue on behalf of the union also called on the Federal Government to urgently address the serious shortcomings of the newly commissioned international terminal at the international wing of the Lagos airport so as to put the terminal to use saying: “It will be a major disservice of this administration should the terminal turn out to be a white elephant. This must be avoided at all cost.”
NUATE equally expressed its displeasure at the ongoing discussions around the federal government’s plans to concession four major airports across the country.
According to Nnabue, the union was unclear as to government’s actual response to the demands of aviation unions on labour issues and many lapses in the concession program.
In the coming weeks, he said the union will make important decisions to chart a clear path towards ameliorating already stated demands of the workers.
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In like manner, the union expressed frustration at what it called the dilly-dallying attitude of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in attending to the negotiated redundancy benefits of ex-staff of the now privatized Skypower Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) since 2009.
While assuring the affected ex-workers that all the aviation unions had gone so far and cannot retreat on the matter at this point, the NUATE president declared: “We are at the verge of final solution, failing which we shall take decisive actions towards seeking justice for the victims.”
Nnabue used the occasion to condemn the back catering being perpetrated by foreign airlines operating in the country saying; “We are presently battling the vexed issue of back catering by some foreign airlines. We are receiving the ears of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on the matter, the reason we tarried on it in the last one month or so. We are definitely committed to seeing an end to the unwelcome act in the interest of local in-flight catering services companies.”
Other issues touched on the workers’ day by the NUATE leadership included: what the sector witnessed before it could get relief from the waning notorious Corona virus, only to be “greeted with the double punch of the Putin war on Ukraine and skyrocketing aviation fuel price. Against the background of negative travelers’ reaction to recent air fare increases, these multiple adversities have been exceedingly crippling, particularly for airlines. This has delayed the exit of our industry from recession.”
Nnabue also spoke on the twin big issues of Minimum Wage Consequential Adjustment and Conditions of Service for the aviation Agencies presently raging.
His words: “We stand firmly by the decision of workers not to accept continuing shifting of the goal post by government agencies on these issues. Therefore, this week has been set out for major decisions and subsequent decisive actions that will bring these issues to a foreclosure.”
and then