Lagos, Nigeria - The regulatory Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is currently carrying out a financial audit of two of the country's domestic airlines and may ground them if necessary. NCAA Director-General Harold Demuren announced the audit during a meeting with visiting US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan McDermott in the economic capital city of Lagos Monday.

“In the airline business, you have to be credit worthy. If an airline does not have enough funds, we will stop it and we’ve done it in the past.

“We do economic audit all the time; and in fact, there are two airlines undergoing this right now, but we don’t discuss it on the pages of newspapers. They are meant to be in public domain, but things have changed a lot,”he said.

The NCAA boss did not identify the airlines involved.

On her part, McDermott said the US was encouraged with the level of collaboration between the two nations, and noted that the Open Skies Agreement between them would help to bring down airfares.

“When you have only single provider, there is a problem of high price but if there is competition, fares will automatically go down and the airlines would be very efficient; they will compete on fares, on service, passengers’ treatment. So, we encourage that,” she said.

Two US airlines, Delta and United, currently operate flights between the US and Nigeria, while three Nigerian airlines have been certified to fly the route.

Pana 31/01/2012