LAGOS, JULY 26, 2016 – The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has rejected the call by some airline operators to reduce the mandatory training of pilots to once a year.The NCAA’s General Manager, Public Relations, Mr Sam Adurogboye, made this known in an interview on Tuesday in Lagos.
In Nigeria, pilots travel overseas twice a year to carry out simulator training after which the NCAA will renew their licenses.
Some airline operators had recently complained that the training cost them about N55 billion annually and had urged the NCAA to review the rules due to the current economic situation in the country.
However, Adurogboye explained that the job of the NCAA was not done based on sentiments but in accordance with the rules and regulations in operation.
He explained that the new Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations (Nig.CARs), which came into effect on July 1, was done by all stakeholders in the sector, including airline operators.
“Whatever is being done on training is in the regulation and it is well captured. As it is done in Nigeria, so it is also done in other countries of the world and it is line with ICAO recommended standards and practices.
“So it is not a thing that because there is economic downturn that somebody will just wake up and ask that the rules be changed.
“You can’t say because you are finding it difficult to secure FOREX that training should be canceled or merged. That is not how it is done.
“We all sat down together to come up with these rules. No operator can therefore be asking for the rules to be changed due to the harsh economy,” Adurogboye said.
According to him, one of the greatest dangers to safe operation was lack of training.
“Everything about airplane keep changing every year and the law requires continuous training for the handlers of these machines.
“In NCAA, 70 per cent of our budget goes into training and these training are expensive but we are doing this because we recognise that our job is human resource based.
“About five years ago, we were paying as much as 50,000 dollars on training our in-house pilots. If we are issuing licences to the operators, we too must equally be current.”
Adurogboye therefore appealed to the operators not to do anything that could compromise the safety of air operations in the country.
