The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has justified its decision to close two airlines counters at the Nnamidi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, saying, the action was prompted by the failure of the affected airlines to pay the huge debts owed the airport authority.
Specifically, the defaulting airlines – Aero Contractors and Azman had their counters sealed on Wednesday by FAAN owing to their failure to remit their mandatory service charge running into several millions of naira.
The development resulted in flight delays as passengers were unable to purchase tickets for their trips while those who had purchased their tickets in advance could not be cleared to proceed on their trips as scheduled.
Service charge is built into the airfare paid by airline passengers, yet some airlines fail/refuse to remit it to FAAN despite several entreaties.
However the counters were reopened after the airlines reportedly remitted the charge to FAAN. It was however not clear whether the airlines fully remitted their indebtedness to the airport authority.
The General Manager, Corporate Affairs, FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, confirmed the development to ArmadaNews.
She said: “Passengers service charge is built into the airfare and airlines are to pay FAAN but Aero and Azman didn’t remit, that was why we sealed their counters but they have remitted now and counters open.”