Unions in the Nigerian aviation industry have distanced themselves from Monday’s grounding of the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Plc by some of its workers.
The unions, comprising of Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), said the action was solely carried out by some NAHCO workers without the input of the unions.
The Unions’ position: The General Secretary of ATSSSAN, Comrade Ocheme Aba, told Nairametrics that the unions received a restraining order from the National Industrial Court of Nigeria on Friday, which restricted them from embarking on the strike as planned.
Aba explained that as a law-abiding organisation, the unions obeyed the court order.
He, however, stated that if the NAHCO’s management had addressed the issues raised by its workers, the grounding of the handling company by the workers would have been avoided. He said:
- “We were not a part of the action. It was an action solely taken by the workers of the ground handling company. We told them about the court order, but they said there was no going back.
- “The workers said they won’t back out of the planned action. They told us to steer clear of it. But as for us, we obeyed the action.”
Grounding affected airlines: The Spokesman of Dana Air, Mr Kingsley Ezenwa, told our correspondent that the airline lost about N100 million due to the 14-hour-flight disruption on Monday.
According to him, the airline’s flights were delayed for hours, while it would also pay for crew hours. He said:
- “It affected all our flights. At the end of the day, when the agencies, the companies or the unions down tools, it affects the airlines and the airlines would still be compelled to make refunds, while some of the passengers would be rescheduled.
- “At least, Dana Air lost about N100 million to the action. The airlines have to fly into the night. We know the implication of these things, yet we allow them to degenerate. When the company knew it would eventually reach a truce with the workers, why did you allow them to disrupt our operations?”
The backstory: Recall that some workers of the ground handling suspended operations for about 14 hours on Monday due to “poor wages.”
More than 50 flights, including local and international flights, were disrupted during the period.
