....as aviation authority introduces passengers' Bill of Rights The last may not have been heard about the stowaway incident that occurred on Saturday aboard Arik Air as the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, yesterday blamed the management of the airline for the security breach.
Arik Air's flight 544 had departed Benin Airport on Saturday at 09:05am to Lagos and immediately the plane landed, an adolescent stowaway, identified as Daniel Ihekina, was spotted coming out of the wheel well of the aircraft.
The boy was immediately arrested by the Aviation Security, AVSEC, and handed over to the police.
Commenting on the incident yesterday, the General Manager, Corporate Communications, FAAN, Mr. Yakubu Dati said that investigations carried out by the agency indicated that a passenger on board the flight had called the attention of the cabin crew before takeoff that a young boy was seen walking under the aircraft and had not reappear on either side.
He stated that the cabin crew in turn informed the pilots about the incident, while the pilots immediately informed the control tower and asked them to request FAAN to do a sweep of the area after their departure, opting to carry on with the flight, despite the report.
Dati explained that immediately the aircraft departed, FAAN's security did another sweep of the area and found nothing unusual at the airside.
He stated that on arrival in Lagos however, the agency was informed that there had been a stowaway found alive alighting from the wheel well of the aircraft.
"While FAAN takes this security breach extremely seriously, we deem Arik's attempt at indicting and smearing FAAN as irresponsible. Safety and security breaches occur when all the checks in the system are beaten.
"Given that security is a responsibility for all players in this industry, a critical last opportunity to detect and prevent this stowaway was offered and had the airline taken the information by passengers as seriously as they should have, this incident would have been avoided.
"Arik Air has a penchant for being unprofessional in its utterances. In the air transport industry, the ethos is not to cast blame, but to learn from such events, by seeking to find out why they occurred, so that all concerned can do everything possible to prevent future occurrences.
"Unfortunately, this airline has chosen to adopt a different ethos and always rushes to cast blame on everybody else except itself. FAAN is dealing with a number of legacy problems stemming from neglect over the years. One of these is the perimeter fencing of airports across the country, which either did not exist before or have deteriorated significantly," Dati said.
He noted that as a result of the incident, the agency has further tightened its risk amelioration procedure to ensure that a similar incident does not occur.
Unconfirmed report said that the stowaway has been handed over to the State Security Service, SSS, for further interrogation.
But as at the time of filing this report, none of the security agencies at the airport, could confirm the whereabouts of the culprit.
Arik Air, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Mr. Ola Adebanji, had blamed FAAN for the huge breach, noting that the incessant cases of security breaches at the nation's airports had become a major source of concern to the airline.
Meanwhile, FAAN has said that a passenger's Bill of Rights has been introduced to protect the rights of air travellers in the country.
The Managing Director of FAAN, Mr George Uriesi, made the disclosure when he featured at a forum of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Abuja yesterday.
He urged passengers to know their rights.
"The airline business is a time-based business; that is why they have schedules; if it was not, it will be a motor park thing where the airplane will wait until it is full.
"So, you who want to go to Abuja by 7 O'clock, if the airplane is not full, by 10 a.m., you still have to be on the ground waiting; so, if a deal is made and I promise you I will take you to Abuja by 7 a.m.; at 7 a.m., you must depart whether there are only five passengers or more; whether you are the only one on board, you must depart.
"In the real sense of the word, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, is the regulator of the airline in this respect, FAAN is just a service provider like the airline but it is a governmentowned service provider.
"The NCAA has recently introduced the passenger Bill of Rights and I encourage everybody; you can access it anywhere, you access on the NCAA's website; you access it at the airport; go to the NCAA's desk and take a copy of the Bill of Rights.
"It stipulates all the rights the passenger has with respect to the contract he has with the airline.
"If the airline says it will fly you at 7 a.m., it has a number of hours against which it can delay you before you are entitled to a meal first and a number of hours in which it can delay before you are taken to a hotel; then a number of hours within which it is expected to pay you a penalty plus refund of your money if you don't want to fly anymore.
"And these are things that never existed before," he said.
National Mirror