Passengers of airlines in the country can now heave a sigh of relief as they will be duly compensated for any losses or damages with the passage of the Ghana Civil Aviation (Amendment) Act 2016, Act 906.
Under the new amended act, passengers will be entitled to compensation for delay or cancellation of flights, loss, damage or destruction of luggage or cargo.
Speaking to Citi Business News ahead of a stakeholders’ conference organised by the GCAA, the manager at the department of Legal, International Relations and Corporate Communications at the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Edzenunye Agbevey described the new act as a breakthrough for the protection of the rights of passengers in Ghana.
“The new amendments come along with various benefits to security,passengers as well as the airlines. It is also one of the number of the Cape Town conventions which were recently rectified and sought to bring better financing to the airlines including our domestic airlines; they will now have more access to funds to acquire new aircrafts and better equipment,” she stated.
In addition, third parties will also be compensated on the face of suffering damage from aircrafts.
“For passengers, we have other conventions which have to do with compensations for the kind of troubles they have to go through when they travel by air. Passengers are assured of compensations where they suffer delays, damage or cancellation of flights and they could also get compensation for destructions of their baggage or loss of the baggage and cargo,” she added.
Meanwhile the act also empowers the authority to prosecute unruly passengers and also demolish unauthorized structures impeding the safety of air navigation in the country at the cost of the owners of the structures.
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority will on Thursday, 21st July, 2016, hold a stakeholder conference on its new amendment.
The new act, which was passed by Parliament and assented to by the President in February this year, has implications for airline operators, passengers and other stakeholders in the aviation industry.
Stakeholders at this conference will understand the rationale for the new act and receive details of its provisions.
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By: Norvan Acquah – Hayford/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
