Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Migrates to Electronic AOC Processing

After years of manually processing Air Operators’ Certificates (AOC) for both aspiring airline operators and established carriers, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has embraced automated protocols.

Stakeholders within Nigeria’s aviation sector have consistently urged the NCAA to implement electronic processing for AOC procedures, pointing to examples in Europe, America, and other global regions where manual processes have been replaced by automated systems.

Concerns raised by industry participants revolved around the substantial paperwork demanded and the undue time wastage that prospective airlines experienced during the AOC acquisition process.

Also, the civil aviation apex body about a few months ago promised to migrate to automated processes.

But, a statement signed by the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Capt. Musa Nuhu said the NCAA had adopted electronic processes for AOC acquisition and directed all intending airlines and existing carriers to follow the new procedures.

Nuhu in the statement made available to journalists on Monday, said that the regulatory body had enhanced AOC Operations Specifications (Op.Specs) to all current AOC holders.

According to him, the directive was contained in an All Operator Letter (AOL) referenced NCAA/DG/AIR/11/16/370, dated August 18, 2023, and is applicable to all AOC holders certificated by the authority.

NCAA had published the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations (Nig. CARs) 2023, which came into effect on July 10, 2023, and Subsection 9.1.1.7 of Nig. CARs Part 9, the NCAA redesigned the layout and format of the Operations Specifications associated with the AOC.

• The statement added: “These new and enhanced multi-paged Op.Specs contain the authorizations, conditions, limitations and approvals issued by the Authority in accordance with the standards which are applicable to operations and maintenance conducted by the AOC holder.
• “In view of the above directive, all AOC holders are required to electronically complete the appropriate pages of the attached Op.Specs and return same to the NCAA via only email addresses indicated below on or before August 23, 2023.”

Nuhu directed the operators to send the appropriate pages to Chairman, Flight Standards Group (FSG), Engr. Godwin Balang, Director, Operations, Licensing and Training Standards (DOLTS), Capt. Ibrahim Dambazau and Director, Airworthiness Standards (DAWS), Engr. Gbolahan Abatan.