Nigeria threatens to ground Moroccan airline for “contempt”

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has threatened to suspend Royal Air Maroc’s operations in Nigeria, accusing the Moroccan flag carrier of treating both Nigerian passengers and the regulator itself with open contempt.

The warning came in an unusually blunt post on X by Michael Achimugu, the NCAA’s director of public affairs and consumer protection, who described an encounter with RAM’s Lagos-based country manager, Ahmed Boussouf, that he said crystallized a year-long pattern of defiance. According to Achimugu, when he registered the authority’s displeasure over the airline’s conduct, Boussouf responded: “Whatever you want to do, do.”

“My department will be taking a very firm stand over this matter, and Royal Air Maroc will stop taking for granted the relationship Morocco has enjoyed with Nigeria and Nigerians,” Achimugu wrote. “We will ensure stiffer penalties against Royal Air Maroc this time.”

Pluboard has reached out to Royal Air Maroc for comment.

A repeat offender

Royal Air Maroc was one of five airlines – alongside Air Peace, Ethiopian Airlines, Arik Air and Aero Contractors – sanctioned by the NCAA in December 2024 for violating Part 19 of the NCAA’s 2023 consumer protection regulations, covering failed refunds, short-landed baggage, and non-responsiveness to regulatory directives.

RAM was singled out at the time as the worst offender among foreign carriers and received the heaviest fine of the group. The airline paid that penalty in September 2025, with the NCAA acknowledging some improvement in complaint response times even as it warned that baggage mishandling remained a persistent problem.

There was a widely publicized case the same month in which a Nigerian family flying Lagos–Nantes reported all eight of their checked bags missing.

Achimugu alleged that baggage continues to go short-landed without timely notice to passengers, that “first-need” compensation – a mandatory interim payment of ₦10,000 for domestic flights or $170 for international routes under NCAA rules – is not being paid consistently, and that complaints are typically only addressed after the regulator directly intervenes.

The sharpest accusation in Achimugu’s post concerns RAM’s handling of NCAA summonses. He alleged that Boussouf, based in Lagos, routinely declines to attend meetings called in Abuja, instead sending a last-minute email claiming cases are “being processed,” followed by a junior Abuja-based representative – named only as “Theophilus” – who Achimugu said has no authority to resolve complaints or make binding commitments on the airline’s behalf.

“Everywhere in the world, when the CAA summons an airline, it is mandatory to attend,” Achimugu wrote, framing the behaviour as a breach not just of consumer-protection rules but of the basic obligations attached to Royal Air Maroc’s bilateral air services agreement (BASA) with Nigeria.

Achimugu said the NCAA would not be “diminished” by the airline’s conduct, and said his department would push for a suspension of RAM’s Nigerian operations until the carrier commits to better treatment of passengers.

“There is nowhere RAM flies to that people do not have alternatives in Air Algerie, Egypt Air, and Ethiopian,” he wrote.