Sirika: Flairjet fined N1 million for violating COVID-19 flight ban

The federal government has fined Flairjet Aviation Company N1 million for disobeying the COVID-19 commercial flights’ ban rule.

In a statement on Sunday, Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, said the fine was the maximum penalty provided for in the country’s civil aviation regulations.

“Flairjet were found to violate our civil aviation regulations IS 1.3.3(a) table 2(IV)7(a) and IS 1.3.3 (a) table 2(VIII)(4),” the minister said.

“The maximum penalty for each is N500,000. We caused them to pay and reported their callous misdemeanour to United Kingdom (UK) Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), MFA and the UK high commission.”

The federal government had banned international and local flights in the country as part of the efforts to control the COVID-19 outbreak and only allowed essential and emergency flights to operate in the airports.

According to Sirika, Flairjet had applied and received approval from the ministry of aviation to carry out humanitarian operations.

An aircraft belonging to Flairjet was seized on May 17 after it was caught operating commercial flights.

At the time, Sirika said the maximum penalty would be imposed on the company in line with relevant laws.

“Flair Aviation, a UK company, was given approval for humanitarian operations but regrettably we caught them conducting commercial flights. This is callous!” the minister said at the time.

The flight crew was quarantined for 14 days according to precautions recommended by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).