Keyamo says FG may seize Dana Air assets to refund stranded passengers
The federal government may seize the assets of Dana Air to refund passengers and travel agents who have been unable to recover their money, according to Festus Keyamo, minister of aviation and aerospace development.
Keyamo announced this on Tuesday in Abuja during the ministry’s fourth-quarter stakeholders’ engagement titled “leveraging public feedback to drive excellence in aviation services.”
He said he will instruct the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to investigate why refunds have not been processed, especially after the suspension of the airline’s operations. He explained that grounding Dana Air was necessary to prevent a possible disaster, noting that safety came before commercial concerns.
Keyamo said the administration received “damning reports” about Dana Air’s safety standards during a review of the airline’s performance. He added that the NCAA had already decided to suspend the airline, but he encouraged the authority to act quickly to protect passengers.
According to him, “for Dana, the problem is that it was a choice between safety and disaster.”
He repeated the same point for emphasis: “for Dana, the problem is that it was a choice between safety and disaster.”
Speaking further, the minister said, “So we didn’t take the commercial thing as a priority. The priority was safety and we all looked at the damning reports that we met on the table. It was a decision of the NCAA to suspend them, but I pushed them to say, look, these are the reports we are seeing on the table about safety record, about lack of standards that put the lives of Nigerians at risk. If they continue flying, I don’t know whether most of us will be here. Many of us would have been victims of one of those flights. God forbid.”
Keyamo said he has directed Chris Najomo, acting director-general of the NCAA, to find out how stranded passengers and ticket agents can get their refunds. “I’ve asked Najomo to dig deep to find out how those passengers and agents will be refunded. He has to dig deep on that,” he said.
He added that any individual or company linked to Dana Air will not be allowed to return to the aviation sector without clearing their debts. “One solution will also be that if that same individual or those entities are trying to come back to aviation under any guise, whether to go and register a new AOC or use any business within the aviation sector, they have to go and settle their debts first,” he said.
Keyamo said the government may also move to recover Dana Air’s assets. “We should look at their assets. There are assets that are still available. Let them sell their assets. Let’s cannibalise their revenue and pay people. Let’s find a way to go after their assets and get money to pay Nigerians who are owed. NCAA should do that because they can’t get away with it,” he said.
Dana Air’s operations were suspended on April 24, 2024, after one of its planes veered off the runway in Lagos. Two days later, Keyamo said internal reports carried out two years earlier had already shown that the airline was unfit to fly, and that repeated incidents made a suspension necessary.
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