By Dickson Omobola
National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, has kicked against a bill before the National Assembly proposing a review of the sharing formula for the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge, TSC, which would cut the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA’s, allocation from 56 per cent to 40 per cent and raise the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA’s, share from 22 per cent to 40 per cent.
Chairman of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Diepreye Saburugha, and Secretary of NAAPE, NCAA Branch, Celestine Chukwu, warned that it is a policy decision with potentially serious implications for aviation safety, regulatory independence and the country’s international standing.
Saburugha and Chukwu, in a statement, said the issue confronting the sector is not simply how the existing five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared, but the persistent backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines.
According to them, the failure by many operators to fully remit Ticket Sales Charges collected from passengers had significantly weakened the revenue pool available for distribution to all beneficiary agencies.
They said the proposal was troubling because the NCAA operates under severe financial pressure, adding that the NCAA was finding it difficult to adequately fund critical safety oversight activities, important inspections and surveillance programmes, among others.
Dark years
The statement reads in part: “Nigerians may have gradually moved on from the dark years when devastating air crashes repeatedly shook the nation, but aviation safety systems are built on institutional memory. The rules, inspections, certifications and oversight systems that protect passengers today did not emerge by accident. They were strengthened through painful lessons, difficult reforms, and the collective determination that the country must never again allow avoidable safety failures to claim innocent lives.
“The crash of Bellview Airlines Flight 210 crash in 2005, which claimed 117 lives, sent shockwaves across the country and exposed serious concerns about safety oversight within the aviation system. Barely months later, the ADC Airlines Flight 53 crash claimed 96 lives, deepening public grief and reinforcing the urgent need for stronger regulatory control. Years later, the tragic Dana Air Flight 992 crash in Lagos again reminded Nigerians that when safety barriers fail, the consequences can be catastrophic not only for passengers onboard, but also for innocent citizens on the ground. Those tragedies, alongside other serious accidents and incidents, forced Nigeria to confront a hard truth: aviation safety can never be taken for granted, and a weak regulator ultimately places lives at risk.
“It was from those painful experiences that Nigeria embarked on significant aviation reforms. Government, industry stakeholders, and international partners recognised that a safety regulator cannot effectively protect the public if it lacks the financial capacity to carry out rigorous oversight. Strengthening the regulatory system required deliberate investment in technical manpower, inspector training, certification processes, surveillance programmes, and compliance enforcement. That journey eventually helped Nigeria build one of the most respected aviation oversight systems on the continent.
Funding models
“The Report of the Implementation Committee on the Establishment of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, published in May 1999 under the chairmanship of Engr. I. Mamman, deliberately established two different funding models for the two organisations. The NCAA was conceived as Nigeria’s independent safety and economic regulator with responsibility for protecting the travelling public through the oversight of the entire civil aviation industry.
Because safety oversight is a sovereign responsibility that generates little commercial revenue but demands enormous financial investment, the Committee recognised that the Authority would ordinarily require government funding. To relieve government of that burden while guaranteeing the financial autonomy necessary for effective safety oversight, the 5% Ticket Sales Charge and Cargo Sales Charge were introduced as sustainable industry-funded mechanisms for financing the NCAA.
“NAMA, on the other hand, was deliberately conceived as a commercial air navigation service provider that would progressively become self-funding through the statutory charges payable for the air navigation and related services it provides to aircraft operators. Indeed, NAMA itself was carved out of the former Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, which previously performed those functions. Today, FAAN remains a self-financing agency and receives no allocation whatsoever from the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge. That was the same financial philosophy upon which NAMA was established. The initial allocation made to NAMA from the Ticket Sales Charge was therefore intended to facilitate its establishment and transition into a financially self-sustaining organisation, not to permanently supplement a service provider that already possesses substantial statutory revenue streams under its enabling Act.
“It was against this background that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority Establishment Act No. 49 of 1999, Part V, paragraph 11(a), allocated 70% of the 5% Ticket Sales Charge to the NCAA and the remaining 30% to NAMA. That allocation reflected the fundamentally different roles and funding models of the two organisations, recognising that while NAMA was expected to generate income from the services it rendered, the NCAA’s primary responsibility was the protection of public safety through independent regulatory oversight.
“However, the Civil Aviation Act of 2006 expanded the statutory allocation to accommodate additional critical aviation institutions. As a result, NCAA’s share was reduced from 70 per cent to 58 per cent, while NAMA’s share was reduced from 30 per cent to 23 per cent. The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, NCAT, was allocated seven per cent, the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, now the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau, NSIB, was allocated three per cent, while the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMet, received mine per cent. Although the inclusion of these agencies was understandable, many stakeholders expressed concern that the progressive reduction of NCAA’s financial base would gradually weaken the financial autonomy of the nation’s primary safety regulator, particularly as the complexity, scope and cost of aviation safety oversight continued to increase.
“The erosion continued under the Civil Aviation Act of 2022, where NCAA’s share was further reduced to 56 per cent, NAMA’s share to 22%, NCAT retained seven per cent, NSIB’s allocation increased to six per cent, and NiMet continued to receive nine per cent. Those earlier concerns have unfortunately proved to be well founded. To now propose a further drastic reduction of NCAA’s share from 56 per cent to 40 per cent, while increasing NAMA’s share from 22 per cent to 40 per cent, is not simply another adjustment to a revenue-sharing formula. It represents a fundamental departure from the very philosophy upon which Nigeria’s aviation safety oversight system was established and threatens to further weaken the financial autonomy of the institution charged with protecting the lives of millions of air travellers.
“One of the real issues confronting the sector is therefore not simply how the existing five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is shared, but the persistent backlog of unremitted charges owed by airlines. The failure by many operators to fully remit Ticket Sales Charges collected from passengers has significantly weakened the revenue pool available for distribution to all beneficiary agencies. This has created financial pressure across the board, affecting NCAA, NAMA, NCAT, NiMet and NSIB alike.
“For this reason, one of the more sustainable policy responses would be to aggressively recover outstanding airline indebtedness and strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure the prompt and full remittance of Ticket Sales Charges going forward. Recovering these outstanding debts would provide much-needed relief to all beneficiary agencies without undermining the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s primary safety regulator. Indeed, given the enormous increase in NCAA’s regulatory responsibilities, the rising cost of safety oversight, inflation, technological advancement and the Authority’s current financial realities, the conversation should not be about reducing NCAA’s statutory allocation. If anything, there is now a compelling case for reviewing its share upwards to approximately 65 per cent in order to preserve Nigeria’s hard-earned aviation safety record.”
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