BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and fuel marketers on Thursday clashed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, over a 100 per cent increase in apron pass charges.
The clash left passengers stranded at the airport over the cold war between the manager of the airport and fuel marketers.
As a result, the airport manager has refused fuel vendors access into the apron to fuel operators’ aircraft on arrival and departures.
Speaking on the development, acting general manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Faithful Hope-Ivbaze said, the apron pass expired since March and they were given up till April 1 to pay up.
She said, the pass renewal is N200,000 and wondered why oil marketers would wait after much appeals and reminders to pay up.
The FAAN spokesperson also noted that, many customers are owing the agency and refused to pay, stating: “They also need money to fix their facilities and when they breakdown, users lambast them for failure to leave up to their responsibilities as manager of the airports.
“Their apron passes expired and they were supposed to renew before the expiration date and they did not. Apron pass are given for a one year period and within that one year period they are supposed to renew.
“The money is not much, it is just N200,000, an oil marketer cannot pay N200,000, when our facilities break down, they expect us to fix them, government is not giving us subvention for any of these things, we are an Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) agency and it is expected that all our facilities to be up to date and we need money to run these things and many of our customers are owing.
“All aircraft that landed this morning at the Abuja airport cannot leave due to lack of access to refuelling for take- off and thus the apron of the airport is congested as more aircraft land from different parts of the county.
“With this development, all airlines have failed to meet their on-time departures.”
A stakeholder who pleaded anonymity said: “Flights are landing and no fuel. I think they are using the fuel marketers as an example but the charges affect everyone including ground handlers. This increase is actually across the board but Abuja is taking action today.
“We now have two aircraft on ground in Abuja waiting for fuel.”
