Three Nigerian airlines have successfully secured International Air Transport Association, IATA, Operational Safety Audit Certification, known as IOSA.
They are Arik Air, Aero Contractors and FirstNation Airways.
IOSA is international safety standard which is given to an airline by IATA after it has been audited and met the recommended safety standard of the world aviation body and according to statistics, there is less number of air accidents involving airlines with IOSA certification compared to others without the certification.
This agreement is known as Abuja Declaration because the Ministers of Transport of various countries met at the Nigeria’s Federal Capital to endorse this agreement, but since then not many airlines operating in the region have met this given criterion.
IATA has however initiated a programme to assist airlines from the continent to meet the safety standard that will enable them comply with the safety requirements for IOSA certification.
Some other Nigerian airlines at the verge of attaining IOSA certification include Allied Air and Cargo services, Overland Airways and Dana Air, while Air Peace, which is a new airline has done its last workshop but is about to be audited.
This disclosure was made when IATA team led by the newly appointed Regional Director for Africa, Tanja Grobotek, paid familiarization visit to the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Capt. Muhtar Usman, at the authority’s headquarters in Lagos at the weekend.
Grobotek, during the meeting, vehemently condemned Consumer Protection Council’s (CPC) incursion into aviation regulatory responsibilities of the NCAA with reference to the recent issue of passengers’ complaint with Turkish Airlines.
She promised that IATA would take up the matter with the Minister of State for Aviation for proper delineation of the agency’s roles to avoid a breach of aviation protocols in Nigeria saying, ‘’a situation whereby our member airlines that are by international conventions answerable to NCAA are now being questioned by another body in Nigeria is confusing and need to be addressed.’’
-bizwatchnigeria