First Nation Airways has reacted to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) suspension on their regular services. NCAA suspended the carrier regular services for two main reasons. The first is because the airline has not paid the N33.5 Million sanction. First Nation was sanctions N33.5 due to safety negligence. The second reason why First Nation Airline was suspended is because of the number of Aircraft in their fleet. First Nation has only one aircraft in their fleet for scheduled services.
“Yes, they use one aircraft and they were on schedule services, but the present status now is that the certificate of the airworthiness of the status has been changed to non-schedule service, which is charter service,” Usman explained.
According to NCAA regulations, a minimum of three aircraft is required for any airline to operate scheduled commercial operation.
In a reaction to the suspension, Rasheed Yusuf the airline representative “said the carrier was undergoing a fleet management program. The AOC was successfully renewed for charter operation and we have contracts for sales distributions. We thus remain committed to the highest level of safety standard in line with global industry best practices. First Nation is currently working on a fleet expansion program and we are confident that we will expand to schedule operation during the fourth quarter of 2017’’
