In response to frequent complaints about flight delays and cancellations and an apparent lack of proper feedback from regulators and airlines, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has set up a portal in its Consumer Protection Bureau to collect, investigate, and resolve issues from passengers and forward them in a timely manner to the affected airlines so that they can be resolved.
The portal is fully automated and operational, helping NCAA consumer protection staff collect and analyze complaints more quickly.
Speaking at a staff training on Wednesday at the NCAA headquarters in Abuja, NCAA Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Michael Achimugu, who represented the NCAA Acting Director General, Capt. Chris Najomo said the focus of this administration is on operationalizing and that the portal will facilitate response to passenger complaints.
He further noted that “Data collection has been a major issue in Nigeria. Handling any aviation issues can not be complete without proper data collection. This portal will afford all stakeholders the opportunities to see and share data collected for proper action.”
On how quickly complaints are resolved on the platform, Achimugu said the portal brings transparency and the airlines involved will review passengers’ issues and immediately try to resolve them.
However, he noted that not all complaints can be resolved immediately as some complaints need to be investigated before feedback. He further added that “some cases are easier to resolve than others and also, the airlines involved in the case also determines how fast cases can be resolved. At the end, there are unforeseen circumstances that can make cases to delay before resolving it”
One of the brains behind the project, Ifeko Abdulmalik, further stated that the portal was launched to simplify the process of complaint resolution as manual processing takes time.
He also said that airlines are logging in from different parts of the world so they can review complaints, which will allow them to act more quickly and resolve issues more quickly.
One of the participants of the training, Amarachukwu Onoh, had this to say about the training, “the training make his work easier, faster and more effective. Right now, we do online and offline and now, everything will be in one portal and we will operate from same portal, which will be easy for tracking. Before now, we had the challenge of having 50 to 100 emails of complaints coming in and it becomes difficult to track and resolve but with this portal, this challenge will become a thing of the past.”
