The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has unveiled plans to reduce the processing timeline for Air Operator Certificate (AOC) to about 90 days as part of its sweeping digital transformation programme aimed at modernising aviation regulatory processes in the country.
Speaking at the unveiling of the Modern Personnel Licensing and Certification (MPLC) NCAA Digital Transformation Initiative PEL/MED Stakeholder Engagement held at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Chris Najomo, said the initiative would eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with manual licensing and certification systems.
Daily Trust reports that AOC approval used to take over five years while some airlines spent more years processing the approval which takes five phases.
However, Najomo disclosed that the authority had already reduced the timeline for obtaining an AOC from between one and two years to between six and eight months under the current administration, stressing that the new digital platform would further cut the process down to approximately 90 days.
According to him, the initiative represents a major milestone in the modernisation of aviation oversight in Nigeria and aligns with global best practices in regulatory efficiency and safety oversight.
He said: ‘Personnel licensing in aviation is key to airline operators. It is very important. This is what pertains everywhere in America and other advanced aviation systems.
‘I am sure airline operators are asking, ‘When are we going to start? When are we going to stop waiting one week, two weeks, sometimes one month for licences to come out?’ But I tell you, it is going to be over soon. There will be no more waiting.’
Najomo explained that the fully digital personnel licensing and medical certification platform would take effect from July 2, 2026, and would eliminate delays associated with paper-based processing for pilots, engineers, aviation medical personnel and other technical professionals.
He added that the new platform would provide transparent online application processes for issuance, renewal and conversion of licences, while also enabling real-time tracking of applications and reducing turnaround time.
According to him, the system would also introduce biometric-backed credentials and QR-code-based licence verification to improve security and compliance.
‘The aviation industry can no longer rely on manual and semi-automated processes, fragmented databases and paper-driven workflows in an era where global regulatory compliance, real-time verification and data integrity have become critical,’ he said.
Najomo further explained that the deployment of the digital licensing and medical certification platform represented the first phase of the NCAA’s broader digital transformation agenda.
He said subsequent phases of the programme would cover Air Operator Certificate processes, Approved Training Organisations (ATOs), Approved Maintenance Organisations (AMOs), aerodromes, air navigation service providers, ground handling companies and dangerous goods approvals.
The DGCA also revealed that the digitalisation initiative would extend to technical certification processes such as aircraft registration, airworthiness certification, aircraft maintenance programme approvals, export and import certification of airworthiness, supplemental type certificates and monitoring of airworthiness directives.
The Director of Airworthiness Standards (DAWS), Engr. Godwin Balang, said the MPLC project would completely eliminate paper-based processing in aviation certification and licensing.
Balang stated that the project was conceived to digitise and modernise the regulatory operations of the authority, noting that effective aviation oversight could no longer be managed manually.
‘What we are going to find with my team is not something you can use paper files to do. You need systems. That is why we are gathered here today,’ he said.
‘The Director-General has picked this project and within two years, he has moved it from where he met it to where it is today. What you are seeing on the screen is the landing page of the software we are talking about.
‘It has a central module, personnel licensing module, technical records module and organisational approvals module. This is a very big area.’