The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and fuel marketers on Thursday clashed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) over a 300% increase in apron pass charges leaving many passengers stranded.

FAAN said that the marketer’s apron passes had expired but they are unwilling to renew resulting in access denials to fuel vendors who must adorn the apron for access to fuel aircraft on arrival and departures.

All aircraft that landed this morning at the Abuja airport cannot leave due to lack of access to refueling 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.

Speaking on the development, Acting General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Faithful Hope-Ivbaze said, the apron pass expired since May and they were given up till April first to pay up.

She said, the pass renewal is N200,000 and wondered why oil marketers would wait after many 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 passes 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 it, the government is not giving us subvention for any of these things, we are an Internally 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," she said.

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.”

Speaking further, “Lagos to Akure with 100% load factor of 4pm is now cancelled as we cannot meet up with sunset even if we depart with our normal schedule now. Akure to Lagos was 70% full. Passengers Easter plans destroyed because of FAAN and Fuel marketers stand-off.

“We now have 2 aircraft on ground Abuja stuck waiting for fuel. We could have tanked into Abuja but we were full so couldn’t," she said. (Daily Independent)

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