Remittance: CBN May Sanction Erring Foreign Airlines

The last may have not been heard on the disputed fare
disparity in the aviation industry as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over
the weekend requested all foreign airlines authorised dealers to submit
information on tickets sold by the airlines in the country in the last 12
years.

The apex bank said it would not hesitate to sanction any
agent that fails to comply with the directive of the federal government.

Central Bank Director, Trade and Exchange Department, Mr.
Batari Musa in a memo to agents titled. “ Request for information on foreign
airlines remittances for the period 1999 to December 2011” said the information
between January 1999 and December 2011 should be submitted to the  department of the apex bank “both in hard and
soft copies”.

It was gathered that about N222 billion was repatriated by
foreign airlines to their home countries in 2011. In all, foreign airlines like
BA, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, Delta Air, Qatar Airways, Egypt Air,
Kenya Airways and Turkish Airways repatriated over N222 billion in one year
while the indigenous carriers continued to carry crumbs.

A document received from one of the agencies had indicated
that British Airways, which has been flying into the country for over 70 years
raked in N31,538,141.518 the year under review.

Other airlines like Emirates earned N21.5 billion on ticket
sales Virgin Atlantic, N11.8bn, Air France, N10.8 bn, KLM N10.5bn, Delta Air,
N7.1bn, Qatar Airways N6.7bn, South African Airway, N5.7bn, Egypt Air, N4.8bn,
Kenya Airways N2.8 bn and Turkish Airlines N1.8bn

Altalia N931.3 million, Liberia N769.1m, Saudi Arabian
Airlines which only flies into Kano from Jeddah grossed N846.1bn and China
Southern Airlines, N769.1m among others.

It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan
recently directed all agencies in the aviation industry and other government
agencies in various sectors of the nation’s economy to henceforth remit 25
percent of their gross income into the federation account.

The agencies affected in the aviation industry include, the
Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Nigerian Air Space management
Authority (NAMA), Nigeria civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Accident and
Investigation Bureau (AIB) and Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET)