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The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has announced a four-point agenda for the country's aviation sector, aimed at advancing safety and improving consumer protection in 2017. Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Monday, Director-General of NCAA, Muhtar Usman, unveiled the agenda, which entails: sustaining zero accident in aviation, reviewing and strengthening economic regulation, improving consumer protection and continuous prioritization of training.

Usman expressed satisfaction that Nigeria recorded zero accident for the third consecutive year in 2016 – which is one of the safest periods in the country’s history. The NCAA boss described 2016 as a successful year notwithstanding the industry’s difficult challenges such as scarcity of foreign exchange, aviation fuel scarcity, and inability of foreign airlines to repatriate ticket revenues.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the DG of NCAA also provided the earnings report of airlines in the first 10 months of last year, stating that airlines operating in the country earned N330.59 billion from ticket sales between January and October of 2016.

The NCAA boss said a total of eight domestic airlines and 31 foreign carriers that operate in the country ferried 11.344 million people in 163,844 flights in that period.

Usman also said airlines recorded an average of 42,000 passengers daily and 597 flights daily in the first 10 months of 2016. He noted that the regulator was still collating and authenticating the figures for the last two months of 2016.

Usman, a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Airways, said the figures for 2016 were slightly different from the previous year. In 2015, Usman said airlines sold tickets worth N385.90 billion while total passenger number reached 11.402 million people and total flights reached 233,845.