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United Nigeria Airlines has received its Operational Safety Audit Certificate from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), to bring the number of domestic carriers that have successfully registered as IOSA operators to six.
The certificate presented by IATA’s area manager, West and Central Africa, Dr. Samson Fatokun was received by the airlines management team, led by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Mazi Osita Okonkwo, at the airline’s office in Ikeja, Lagos recently.
IOSA which was established by IATA in 2003, uses internationally recognised quality auditing principles to assess the operational management and safety controls of airlines to certify them consistently and is the international standard for airline safety and operational evaluation.
In his presentation, Dr. Fatokun said that United Nigeria Airlines achieved the IOSA within two years, stating that it is a great achievement worthy of congratulations. He also made it clear that to become an IATA member, the airline must first be on the IOSA registry.
“IOSA is an end and also a means you can use to go higher. I congratulate you and say you have done well. We have very few airlines in West African region that have it. You are one of the few and we hope you sustain it. We also have six airlines in Nigeria that are on IOSA register. There is no country that has as much as that. We will encourage those airlines which are not in the registry to join. The objective is safety and any airline that aspires for safety, we will help them,” he said.
Responding to the presentation on behalf of United Nigeria Airlines, Mazi Okonkwo thanked both the airlines management team and IATA for making it possible. Assuring that the airline will tap from all the advantages of IOSA membership, Okonkwo said, “We will explore all the advantages accruable from the IOSA registry. The business of flying is the business of safety. It is a collaborative work with the NCAA and IATA.
“It is also about benchmarking on safety standards according to the global best practices. We now have a certified benchmark to work with. Codeshare will be part of it and we will announce the airlines we will be codesharing with. This is a journey we started six months ago. We thank our team that worked so many hours. We also thank IATA and the audit team that guided us throughout the process. It couldn’t have been easy without our airline’s team, the regulator, ground handlers and other stakeholders. It involves visiting our ATO that trains our pilots and to ensure that our books are in order. In terms of United Nigeria Airlines, this is one step along our set objectives,”Okonkwo said.
