The Ministry of Aviation has alleged that the debts owed to the aviation agencies by local airlines in Nigeria have leaped to about N100 billion.

It was learnt that these debts are owed to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). The debts range from five per cent service charge, landing and parking to en-route navigational charges.

Permanent Secretary, Binta Bello, Head of Finance in FAAN met with Arik Air in Abuja on Wednesday, August 19 to review the airline’s debts and a committee was set up to  reconcile the debts and meet with the Permanent Secretary in one or two weeks.

A FAAN source on Wednesday stated that the agency defended the debts it claimed were owed by Arik Air, but admitted that airlines actually capitalize on the conflicting figures, which the agency publishes because almost all the time the figures given out by the individual airports conflict with the ones given by the headquarters.

Also, a senior official in FAAN who was part of the team that met with Arik Air and the Permanent Secretary acknowledged that the airline disputed the debts because of the conflicting figures and when asked whether the airlines owed as much as N100 billion, the source said he was not sure but the debts could be close to that.

The Ministry of Aviation and the agencies were also billed to meet with other airlines subsequently to reconcile the debts so that both the airlines and the concerned agencies would agree on how much is owed and how the debts would be liquidated.