By Chinedu Eze
The UK Civil Aviation Authority may seize the operating licence of the charter airline, Flairjet, which violated the rules in Nigeria by illegally operating charter service instead of evacuation it got approval for a week ago.
The federal government has reported the matter to the UK government and it may lead to a temporary seizure of the operating license of the airline.
The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, who stated this yesterday on his verified twitter account, disclosed that in addition to reporting Flairjet to the UK authorities, the airline has also paid penalties of N500, 000 each for violating two Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations: IS 1.3.3 (a) Table 2 (IV) 7 (a) and IS 1.3.3 (a) Table 2 (VIII) (4).
“The maximum penalty for each is N500, 000. We caused them to pay and reported their callous misdemeanour to UK CAA, MFA and UK High Commission,” Sirika said.
The federal government last week impounded an aircraft belonging to Flairjet, a United Kingdom-based aviation company for illegally operating commercial flight as against the humanitarian evacuation operations it was given approval to carry out in Nigeria.
The aircraft was grounded and the crew quarantined.
