THE Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has warned that airline operators who fail to remit the mandatory five per cent ticket sales charge and cargo sales charge (TSC/CSC) risk two-year imprisonment, N5 million fine, or both penalties.

The five per cent TSC/CSC is statutory and deducted from the total air ticket paid by air passengers to airlines, and also apply to cargo charge.

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The directive is contained in the newly introduced Civil Aviation Act (CAA) 2022. President Muhammadu Buhari signed the CAA 2022 into law in August.

Section 23(10) of the CAA stipulated that the NCAA may delegate power to collect the five per cent TSC/CSC to the airlines, prescribe the manner and time for making remittances of funds collected on its behalf.

The Act equally places a N5 million fine, two-year imprisonment, or both on operator’s directors whose airlines fail to remit the funds to the NCAA within the specified time.

The TSC/CSC is shared among four aviation agencies – NCAA, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB).

The NCAA had in August warned airlines against price fixing or any gang up to fix price of flight tickets without its knowledge.

Also, the agency issued ultimatum to local operators over unpaid debts of N49.29 billion ($108.8 million).

However, airline operators had lamented that the rise in aviation fuel, known as Jet A1, has increased operational cost to over 130 per cent and therefore called for the removal of the five per cent surcharge collected by the NCAA.

Reacting to the demand of the airline operators, NCAA stated that the money was collected on behalf of the Federal Government.

The agency also noted that passengers, rather than the airlines, are the ones that credit the fund.