Cleric Advocates Bailout For Airlines

As a means of tackling
challenges faced by some airline operators in Nigeria, Bishop Rommel Emerike, has called on the Federal Government to extend bail out to some airline operators so as to guarantee sustenance and stability in the system.
He urged the Federal Government not to lose focus on the airlines just as efforts are being made to fix other sectors of the economy.
Bishop Emerike, who is of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star and also a business executive, while speaking to airport correspondents at the Port Harcourt International Airport at Omagwa on his way to Abuja, said such bailout will make airline operators to be in business, as well as keep their employees.
“Airline operators are in business to make profit so as to meet their responsibilities and we can see the deplorable nature of our economy.
Inflation has increased, in August this year, it was 17.6 percent, and it is rubbing off on all the sectors. Cost of maintenance of aircraft is high.
It will be bad that they will be out of business, and we have no airline to fly again, so there is need for government to help them”, he stated.
Emerike also urged air travellers to be patient with airline operators because of slight increase in ticket cost which is due to increase in their cost of operations, and expressed the hope that things will improve for good.
On the amnesty granted by Rivers State Government to cultists, he said that such offer is an act of generosity on the part of Governor Nyesome Wike, so as to re-channel the man power of repentant cultists to real productive ventures.
He, however, posited that such should not be accompanied with money to be given to beneficiaries, even as they surrender their arms.