Simon Allotey, Executive Director, GCAA
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has released draft directives to protect travelers who use Ghanaian registered aircraft.
At a stakeholders’ meeting in Accra to release the draft directives on consumer protection, Joyce A. Thompson, Director of Legal, International Relations and Communications, at GCAA said: “These directives deal with passengers’ rights and air operators obligations to passengers. They address consumer protection issues and set out types of compensation for overbooking and denied boarding, delays and cancellation of flights.”
She also said the directives cover compensation for denied boarding, flight delays, flight cancellation and baggage damages and loss.
Also, when persons are denied entry onto a domestic airline, they are entitled to reimbursement or re-routing and additional compensation of the cedi equivalent of $50.
For regional flights, affected passengers would be entitled to the same reimbursement or re-routing and an additional compensation of $300, while for international flights the compensation package, apart from the required reimbursement or re-routing, stands at $600.
She, however, cautioned that some things could be changed in the draft before they are eventually passed as law.
The directives also cover misleading advertisement.
It stated that all fees that were advertised as flight or plane tickets should be inclusive of all charges, so as not to mislead some members of the public.
“It is worrying when a person sees the advertisement for a plane ticket and gets to the airport only to be told the advertised charge was exclusive of certain taxes and charges, the Authority disclosed.
Ayeh-Paye, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayensuano, said that more publicity and education should be given to Ghanaians to equip them to know their rights.
The meeting attracted industry players, members of parliament, consumers and other stakeholders who deliberated on the draft directives that had been released.