Our concerns about e- hailing operators at airports, by FAAN MD

 Our concerns about e- hailing operators at airports, by FAAN MD

The Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs Olubunmi Kuku has expressed reservations about the  ill- treatment of passengers by e- hailing operators offering shuttle/car hire services at airports saying the authority cannot fold its arms when concerns  bordering on passengers' safety , security , price offering and other complaints remain unaddressed.

Kuku said as much as passengers are at liberty to choose the e- hailing / car hire operator they so desire, issues bordering on seamless experience, safety ,  liability clauses, request for dedicated pick up zones and taking responsibility for their drivers remain key bone of contention.

Speaking in an interview in Lagos, while offering clarifications on the exit of one of the major players in the e- hailing ecosystem - Uber, Kuku said the company had economic and regulatory reasons for discontinuing  its services in Nigeria .

 The FAAN boss said : In  recent weeks, I've seen a lot of information in the media, but I think what is important to clarify... Look, I work for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, and my responsibility, first, is to ensure that our passengers are safe, they're protected, and they have a seamless passenger experience.

"For Uber, I can't speak to their exit from Nigeria. I'm sure they have their own economic and regulatory decisions as to why they choose to exit. But a couple of things are very clear. What was important for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria is to ensure that we addressed passenger concerns. We did receive a lot of concerns, especially around the December holiday period, about passengers who took some of the e-hailing—so I don't want to mention one or the other—but used some of the e-hailing services, and even the car hire services, who had very terrible experiences.

" Some of them went all the way from intimidation, to being dropped in other places, and even more extreme situations.

"We did have situations where some of the Uber and Bolt drivers would get down from their cars under the guise of coming into the airport as e-hailing drivers, and they would join the car hires to charge higher fares. Based on this, it was important—because everybody was complaining about the touting at the airport—that we even provided some sort of regulatory oversight on the car hires.

"So the app that was developed was strictly to focus on the fact that you have visibility on who the car hire companies are, you know who the driver that is taking you from Point A to Point B is. FAAN does not collect money on behalf of the drivers. Those car hire drivers are not FAAN drivers. All we do is to give you a sample of the rates based on the destination that you're going to.

"Now, it's also important to note that the car hires by nature have always charged a higher fare, because their reason is they're only going from one point to the airport and returning to the airport. It is the choice of the passenger whether you want to pre-book your cars, whether you want to use the e-hailing app, or you want to use the car hires—we have no jurisdiction over that. The only thing that I have a responsibility to do is to ensure that you have visibility over who is driving you and those within our airport."

Kuku went on : "One of the things that we were struggling with the e-hailing companies was largely around liability clauses. So they wanted us to give them dedicated pickup zones, which we agreed to, but we also wanted them to take responsibility for the drivers. But we were told that those drivers are not the drivers of Uber, rather they're independent drivers.

" So any safety concerns that we had, they wanted the passengers to use the safety features; they did not want to take up that responsibility, and we had a major issue with that.

"That's all I'm going to say about that matter. Again, I'm sure that they had their own reasoning, and I know that they had been considering exiting Nigeria for a while, which is indeed why we had a stumbling point with them. So it's not—it has nothing to do with FAAN. Again, the airport is just a small jurisdiction of the area that they cover within Nigeria."