As the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) enforces its 'Pay As You Go' policy today, it has warned that any airline that refuses to comply with the payment option would be denied navigational services.

The agency's Managing Director, Ibrahim Auyo, who announced this in Lagos yesterday, stated that navigational services which would be denied debtor airlines include Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) services and the use of NAMA's enroute navigational aids.

"If these airlines do not pay today, we would withdraw our service, and if they like they can decide to fly blindly," Auyo declared.

He explained that the agency would not ground any airline, but it would only deny them of navigation services which the agency provides for a fee to sustain its operations and maintain its hi-tech equipment scattered all over the country.

The NAMA managing director stated that the law establishing the agency mandates it to provide services and charge fees, adding that without money it cannot sustain the security of the airspace.

"We cannot survive without money.Our airspace is very safe and we do not want anything that would threaten it. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) states that we should charge for the services we provide, in order to enhance safety of the facilities we are putting on ground and that is what NAMA is doing.

"We are just obeying standards. Our decree says we should provide service and also charge for that, but the airlines refuse to pay us. If the Federal Government gives us money to offset our debts, then it is okay," he said.

He said before the agency decided on the 'pay before service' option, all the stakeholders were taken along. "I said we followed all due processes; in fact we had a meeting just last week with Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) and members of the federal ministry of aviation and all the parastatals, they were all involved. We need this money to make sure that our airspace, airports are really safe, very, very safe to sustain the recently achieved Category 1 status for Nigeria. We just have to do that."