Airfares Go Up From Saturday

The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) will from Saturday, 1^st October begin charging its safety charge on all international and regional flights in Ghana.

Director-General of the GCAA, Simon Allottey, who confirmed this, said the move is as result of the common agreement reached with all stakeholders in the industry.

Mr Allottey disclosed that all stakeholders in the industry with IATA agreed for the implementation date to begin on October 1, 2016 after consultations.

“After exhaustive consultations and discussions with all parties, we have agreed that implementation date would be from October 1, this year.”

He further explained that “this is because we have done all the necessary consultations involving IATA that is the International Air Transport Association plus we have involved all the airlines and the board of the airlines representatives in Ghana.

'Let me state that all other key stakeholders both local and international were consulted to discuss all the modalities for implementation and we are ready to begin the implementation,” he stated.

GCAA was forced to halt the implementation of the safety charge in August 2016 by the airlines and other stakeholders within the industry.

The airlines argued at the time that they had not been duly consulted and could not immediately add the safety charge as it was against the IATA rules of ticketing.

The introduction of the safety charge will see airline tickets attract $10 extra and cargo fares $20.

The increase is due to the amended GCAA Law (Act906, 2016), which the President assented to in February, this year.

-Citifmonline