Keyamo to brief Tinubu on aviation dispute resolution

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, will brief President Bola Tinubu on the resolution reached between aviation sector unions and the Airline Operators of Nigeria over the lingering dispute surrounding the Ticket Sales Charge.

The development followed an emergency meeting convened by the minister on Thursday with the feuding parties, days after the unions suspended their industrial action that disrupted flight operations at major airports across the country.

The meeting, which lasted several hours in Abuja, produced a five-point resolution aimed at addressing the unions’ grievances over airlines’ outstanding TSC payments, workers’ freedom to join trade unions and the need to prevent further disruption to aviation operations.

Our correspondent further gathered that the minister had directed the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mahmud Kambari, to prepare two separate communications: a comprehensive brief for the President detailing the dispute, the deliberations and the resolutions reached, as well as a public statement outlining the outcome of the meeting.

According to the statement issued by the ministry following the meeting, the parties agreed that the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and other aviation agencies would obtain payment schedules from airlines with outstanding obligations.

The payments, the parties agreed, would be spread over a reasonable period, taking into account the airlines’ operating costs and the prevailing economic realities.

The statement further disclosed that Directors of Finance and Accounts across the aviation agencies would meet individually with the affected airlines within one week to agree on realistic repayment plans.

On the contentious issue of unionisation, the minister affirmed the right of aviation workers to decide for themselves whether or not to belong to a trade union. The ministry said the NCAA had consequently been directed to ensure that unions had direct access to workers across all airlines for the purpose of distributing union membership forms.

According to the resolution, workers, rather than airline management, would be allowed to independently indicate whether they wished to unionise. The ministry warned that airlines that prevented unions from having such direct access to workers would face sanctions from the NCAA.

The parties also agreed to reconvene after one month to assess the implementation of the resolutions and review the state of the dispute. The statement said the five resolutions represented the collective decisions of all parties at the meeting.

The resolutions read in part, “The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and other Heads of Aviation Agencies are to obtain a schedule of payments from the airlines, spread over a reasonable timeframe, taking into cognizance the airlines’ cost of operation and current economic realities.