Nigeria's NCAA Fights to Reclaim 65% Ticket Charge Share to Safeguard Aviation Safety
A high-stakes funding debate is unfolding in Nigeria's aviation sector, one that could shape the future of safety oversight in Africa's largest passenger market. The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has formally called on the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation to restore its original allocation from the 5% Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) and Cargo Sales Charge (CSC) to 65 per cent, cautioning that any further cuts would seriously weaken the country's ability to meet international safety standards.
Speaking during a public hearing at the National Assembly in Abuja, the Director General of Civil Aviation, Captain Chris Najomo, emphasised that the regulator currently depends on the Ticket Sales Charge for roughly 83 per cent of its total funding. He warned that redirecting additional resources from the NCAA to operational entities such as the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) would breach principles set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and directly threaten Nigeria's aviation safety rating. For African travel professionals working with Nigerian carriers or routing clients through Lagos and Abuja, this is a development worth watching closely.
The urgency of the appeal is underlined by recent audit findings. Nigeria posted an impressive overall score of 91.3 per cent in a recent ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission, yet the country registered a critically low 50 per cent in financial resource adequacy for its State Safety Oversight System. According to Captain Najomo, this shortfall has already begun causing serious operational strain within the regulator, threatening the credibility of Nigerian aviation in the eyes of international partners.
Among the most pressing concerns is the poaching of highly trained technical inspectors by airlines, maintenance organisations and foreign civil aviation authorities offering better remuneration. Essential recurrent technical training for inspectors, continuous aircraft and aerodrome surveillance, certification programmes and inspector duty tour allowances are all being constrained by the funding squeeze. On top of this, the NCAA independently funds Nigeria's mandatory contributions to ICAO, the Banjul Accord Group Aviation Safety Oversight Organisation (BAGASOO) and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), all without any supplementary state subvention.
"Aircraft do not inspect themselves, and airlines cannot regulate themselves," Captain Najomo told lawmakers, pointing out that ICAO's 2026 to 2028 Global Aviation Safety Plan explicitly identifies insufficient financial resources for safety authorities as the world's most pressing aviation challenge.
Rebutting proposals that would channel more TSC revenue to NAMA, the NCAA chief drew a firm line between the role of a sovereign regulator and that of a commercial service provider. He referenced ICAO guidelines contained in Document 9082, which clearly separate the two functions. The NCAA, he explained, exists purely in the public interest and cannot recover costs from every entity it oversees. NAMA, by contrast, already benefits from 16 distinct commercial revenue streams, including over-flight charges, en-route fees and terminal navigation fees, which together account for around 75 per cent of its total income. Importantly, ICAO standards also indicate that air navigation service costs should be recovered from aircraft operators as users, not from passengers as end-users through ticket charges.
The NCAA is therefore urging lawmakers to return to the funding framework originally set out in 1999, when the current institutional architecture of the sector was designed. Captain Najomo argued that any additional financial needs for NAMA's infrastructure should be met by optimising its existing commercial revenue streams or through targeted government capital grants, rather than by stripping the safety regulator of its primary lifeline. The Airline Operators of Nigeria, meanwhile, have gone a step further, calling on the National Assembly to scrap the current percentage-based charge altogether and replace it with a passenger service charge model similar to that used by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
For the wider African travel trade, the significance of this debate goes beyond Nigerian borders. Robust safety oversight is the foundation on which airline partnerships, code-share agreements, insurance conditions and tourism confidence are built. As African aviation continues to grow, how governments choose to fund their regulators will determine whether the continent's carriers can compete credibly on the global stage in the years to come.
