Festus Keyamo, minister of aviation and aerospace development, has criticised a recent statement by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Air Peace’s airfares, describing it as “very careless”.
On December 1, the FCCPC announced it would investigate Air Peace over consumer complaints of exploitative practices.
FCCPC said it will probe Air Peace over significant price hikes for advance bookings on certain domestic routes.
On Friday, Oluwatoyin Olajide, Air Peace’s chief operating officer, described the FCCPC’s allegations of exploitative fares as damaging and unfair.
Speaking during an interview on ‘This Morning’ show on Arise News on Sunday, Keyamo said the commission should have consulted the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the core agency responsible for regulation, before making such comments.
“I think it was a very careless statement — I say that with all apologies — by the agency, without even consulting the core agency involved in regulation, which is the NCAA,” he said.
“The powers to regulate for the airline to inform about their price increase and all that is domiciled in NCAA, that is the core agency.
“We cannot have an agency of government floating all over the place, having all the powers, that means if there’s a problem with yam pricing they will go and call the agricultural minister.
“I don’t think their powers are stretched to that point, but I say that with apologies because also I’m a minister of government.
“They should have contacted the NCAA for them to look at the figures and the books which we have been doing, so we would have given them facts, but to single out a few airlines while we are struggling to expose them to the world for them to get more enhanced capacity was a bit careless.”
