By GINIKA OKOYE

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has backed the Aviation Minister, Mr Festus Keyamo, on payment of compensation by airlines to passengers affected by flight delays and cancellation.

Mr Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, said this at a strategic media engagement organised by the Commission in Abuja on Thursday.

Irukera said the compensation was necessary due to the increasing number of consumer complaints received by the commission regarding flight delays and cancellations.

On increasing airfares, he said that the most difficult places to determine price was in airlines, saying that it was possible to sit on the same flight and pay different prices.

According to him, lack of competition always makes prices high and appealed to the media to join hands in calling airlines out for accountability.

“The media can call airlines out. There is no reason why the media cannot say, we are doing airlines scorecard.

“Investigative journalists can do some work and say that over the past five months, this is the airline with delays, this is who we see with cancellation, this is whowe see who doesn’t sell their schedules.

“If you want to go to Abuja and you want to be there on time, avoid this airline so long as there is empirical evidence.

“If the airline comes after you, you know that we will stand up. It has happened before where somebody gave a negative review about a product and the business sought to have the person arrested.

“We fought until the person was released. And that person does not have the kind of protection you have. We must work together as partners,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports thatthe engagement is with theme `Reflections on the Road so far, and road ahead’. (NAN)