The last may not have been heard about the crisis between
LEADERSHIP reports that NUATE had picketed
However, in a statement signed by NUATE's general secretary, Ocheme Aba, and a copy of which was made available to LEADERSHIP, it stated that the report that the sacked staff were involved in ticket racketeering was untrue.
According to Ocheme, it was the sales manager, a Turkish national, who asked staff to use the PNR obtained online by the customers to process their tickets.
Ocheme said manual processing of tickets were necessary since customers can't pay online due to sales restriction circular from the airlines as a response to the difficulty in repatriating their proceeds.
The union leader said, "We wish to let the public and stakeholders know that the accusations are blatant and poorly formulated lies. In the first place, the claim that the Airline lost
"But, in a contradicting manner the Airline had an advertised fare on the website which was much lower than the permitted fares. Therefore, intending passengers who accessed such fare, but could not pay online were directed by the global call center to approach the Nigerian offices. As the workers could not attend to the customers due to the sales restriction, the passengers resorted to creating ugly scenes at the sales offices which became riotous at times.
"As an image saving measure, the then sales manager asked the sales staff to use the PNR obtained online by the customers to process the tickets if the Airline's booking system could route the tickets. The sales staff simply complied. As a matter of fact, the then sales manager, a Turkish national, sold this tickets too to confirm that this was the local management's approved approach to resolving the problem created by the website.
"The Airline's accountants received all due monies from all tickets sold and all sales report were daily submitted to sales manager, signed by him and accounts department and scanned to HQ. If monies were not fully received, the account would not have balanced, and sales could not have been concluded. Therefore, no monies belonging to
"It is, therefore, disingenuous for the General Manager to hold the workers to the charge of failure to comply with the sales restrictions when it is clear that shortcomings on the part of the Airlines ICT (on the website) combined with Local Management's decisions on managing an otherwise ugly situation were responsible for the sales in question.
"It is noteworthy that while the Nigerian staff have been dismissed, the Turkish Sales Manager has been promoted and redeployed, and the ICT of the airline has answered no charges. Talk about racism. What better example than this."
Meanwhile, the aviation union has declared the general manager of
The union, however, threatened to instruct all aviation workers not to attend to him at any
The union stated that if compelled, NUATE shall internationalise the
"NUATE wishes to state that the high-handedness, plain wickedness and undiluted arrogance of Mr.
"There is no hiding the fact that Lokman is averse to ethical behaviour, and constitutes a present and definite danger to airline business in
"On our part, however, NUATE has declared
"In conclusion, NUATE wishes to, on the one hand, assure Mr.
"On the other hand, NUATE assures the public and aviation stakeholders that our justified position will be pursued in the manner that other aviation businesses will not be negatively impacted, but only to the extent that we are allowed to prosecute our struggle without unlawful hindrances," the statement stated.
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