Chinelo Obogo
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), has announced that it was the first agency to relocate its corporate headquarters to the Federal Capital, Abuja in compliance with the directive that all aviation agencies should move to the nation’s capital.
In a statement signed by General Manager, Public Relations, Sam Adurogboye said NCAA’s relocation was swift and seamless and has seen all its top management staff including the Director General, Directors and other critical members of staff moved to Abuja.
”There is no denying the fact that this exercise has come with the attendant challenges, especially to staff. The Authority has however been able to address the concerns in such a way that the relocation has been made seamless as possible.
“The general public is hereby enjoined to henceforth, address all correspondences to our Corporate Headquarters situated at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja.
The Minister of Aviation, Caota Hadi Sirika had in a memo dated 4th May, 2020 to all the agencies given an ultimatum for the relocation. So far, the Accident Investigation Bureau, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria and the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency have moved their headquarters to Abuja.
Meanwhile, Air Peace and Dana Air conducted shakedown flights ahead of flight resumptions after more than three months of being grounded.
According to a statement by Dana Air’s Media and Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa, the airline had to carry out the exercise to demonstrate its readiness to resume flights as soon as the airspace is opened.
”Although all through the lockdown, we had our engineers on ground to ensure proper storage and steady maintenance of our fleet for resumption at any time, and as part of our post covid resumptions plans, we had to get our team fully on ground on Wednesday for a dry run at the MMA2 terminal under the supervision of NCAA.
”After a successful dry run, we conducted shakedown flights from Lagos to Port Harcourt with our newly acquired Boeing and MD aircraft in our fleet.
“Dana Air is 100% ready so is MMA2 and some other terminals we operate from. All Personal Protective Equipment have been made available for all staff, crew and passengers who might not come around with one.
”All recommended training, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all staff have been updated and concluded. All our aircraft are fitted with HEPA filters which filter 99.9% of unwanted particles and viruses in the air. It also helps passengers breathe normally. All aircraft in our fleet have also been disinfected as recommended by the NCAA and we have an optimised cleaning protocol to provide all-round peace of mind for our guests,” Ezenwa said.
Also, Air Peace flew 25 of its aircraft to Abuja, Port Harcourt and back to Lagos without passengers.
This, according to the airline is in readiness to resume operations as time draws near.
These flights were aimed at ensuring that the aircraft are in good condition, having been grounded for about three months though they have been under very strict storage maintenance.
The spokesperson of the airline, Stanley Olisa, who revealed this in a statement to journalists, said the shakedown flights are part of the measures the airline has developed to guarantee the safety of both passengers and crew when operations resume.
He noted that the aircraft have been in storage mode for a couple of months and extensive maintenance checks have been carried out to keep them up to the required standards.
Olisa said: “Within this period of flight ban, we have ramped up technical maintenance of all our aircraft, scaled up cabin refresh and carried out thorough disinfection to ensure they remain fit for the skies when the authorities flag off operations.”
He added that the aircraft are now being brought out of storage and the pilots have been testing them, stressing that all pilots and flight attendants have been retrained in line with NCAA directives.
On the airline’s readiness to resume regular flights, he stated: “As you know, we have been operating ‘special flights’ to local and international destinations, and we have more of such flights in the works. This accentuates our preparedness for operation restart as our pilots, cabin crew and engineers have been hands-on and are very current. So, we are hundred percent ready to resume.”