Airports across the country are to be shut down beginning from Sunday midnight, two leading unions in the sector on Thursday threatened. The unions vowed to paralyse all activities of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority by midnight on Sunday.
                            

The unions – the National Union of Air Transport Employees and the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers – made their position known in a letter dated October 21, 2015.

The National Mirror obtained the letter on Thursday.

The unions accused the NCAA of not adhering to the condition of service with respect to promotion of workers and other welfare issues.

The letter was jointly signed by the Secretary General of NUATE and Secretary General NAAPE, Comrades Olayinka Abioye and Aba Ocheme.

The unions threatened to shut down the NCAA from midnight on Sunday until further notice.

The unions insisted that the withdrawal of service by the workers became paramount in order to safeguard the integrity of NCAA’s condition of service.

The unions noted that the action of the Director-General of the NCAA, Captain Muhtar Usman, was in violation of section 3.4 of condition of service, adding that all efforts to discuss with the management had been futile.

The letter added: “By the copy of this notice, the general public is hereby informed of this development and the implications that all safety regulations activities of the NCAA will be unavailable from that time and date.

“The above notice will remain in force until otherwise directed by the secretariat of our unions.”

Passenger traffic rose at the Domestic Terminals 1 and 2 of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja on Thursday ahead of the Eid-el-Fitri holidays, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The Federal Government had declared Friday and Monday as public holidays to mark the festive period.

 Many of the outbound passengers were seen on long queues, waiting to board flights to their destinations, while others waited patiently to pick up their luggage on arrival.

Several air travellers were also seen struggling to get seats on the few available flights to their various destinations across the country.

Air ticket from Lagos to Kano, which used to sell for between N22, 500 and N27,000, rose to about N35,000 in some cases.

Flights from Lagos to Abuja, which normally cost between N15, 000 and N26,000, depending on the airline and the time of flight, also went for N30,000 or more, most of the flights that had their fares increased were headed for the northern part of the country.

The Aero Contractor Airlines check-in counter had the longest queue of passengers at the MMA2, while the Arik Airline counters also had long queues at the General Aviation Terminal One (GAT1).

A passenger, Mrs Adeyinka Akilla, who was travelling to Abuja with her children, said she had
purchased a ticket for the flight from Lagos the previous week.

Akilla, however, said that she got to the airport a few minutes after the first boarding call but was denied access to the plane on the excuse that she was late.

“I was surprised to get here only to learn that I was late. My flight was scheduled for 3:30 p.m., and I got here at 2.30 p.m. because of traffic, but the airline’s officials didn’t check me in.

“They said I was very late; I had to run around to raise extra money to pay in order to be able to go with the next available flight.

“I think it is rather unfair, because I should still have been allowed to get on the plane,’’ she lamented.
Mr Olumide Faleti, who was heading to Enugu said: “it is funny how things operate here. “This is a time to share and not to exploit your passengers.’’

According to him, domestic airlines should learn to introduce low cost promotional fares to attract travellers instead of exploiting passengers as a result of the season.