The deadline is nearing: On February 17, the US regulatory aviation body will head to Nigeria to assess the country’s aviation sector.
Nigeria’s aviation sector is still troubled with problems so there are concerns it may be downgraded due to safety issues, high taxes and high cost of aviation fuel.
“As far as I’m concerned, category one has never really benefited Nigeria. We really don’t need it. We spend a lot of money putting things together to get category one and what benefit is there,” Pekun Sowole, Aviation lawyer from Jurislaw legal practitioners told CNBC Africa.
Right now, the country has a category one status.
“If you continue to have air crashes, your insurance premium is going to go up. So whether you have category or one or two, it doesn’t really matter,” he added.
If the country’s status is downgraded to category two, “Nigerian airlines may not be able to fly to the US and this is the biggest source of concern in the industry especially for Arik Airlines as it flys directly to New York,” reports CNBC Africa.
“In the worst case scenario, you would have to fly to Dakar, do security checks and go to the US. I think what we should say is, if we get downgraded, and our airlines can’t fly to the US, your airlines can’t fly directly to Nigeria. You’ll also go to Dakar, do custom checks before you come to Nigeria,” he said.
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