The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has provided clarity on why Nigeria was delisted from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Category One status. The delisting, effective from September 2022, was primarily due to the absence of Nigerian airlines operating direct services to the United States over a two-year period.
Acting Director General of the NCAA, Capt. Chris Najomo, emphasized that the decision had no connection to safety or security deficiencies within Nigeria’s aviation oversight. Instead, it was part of a broader FAA policy to remove countries from the Category One list if they lacked an indigenous operator providing service to the U.S. or carrying the airline code of a U.S. operator.