The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has declared support for the drive of UNIVASA in improving passengers’ travel experience with uninterrupted internet connectivity.
This was announced on Wednesday in Abuja at the NCAA and UNIVASA stakeholders’ engagement by the Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection of NCAA, Mr Achimugu Michael.
He made the travel experience better for Nigerian passengers, noting: For too long, we have had these internet connectivity problems for Nigerian passengers both at our airports here at home and abroad.
‘Nigerians spend a lot of money to connect to internet abroad. So the Honorable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, in his wisdom, sat down and had a conversation with UNIVASA which is also a local company run and operated by Nigerians, on how to improve internet connectivity for passengers.
‘One of his (Minister’s) five-point agenda is support for the local industry. As long as the company is offering world-class service that actually solves a very relevant need for Nigerian passengers, the Minister gives as much support as he can.
‘So when the company made this approach, offering this solution, we looked at it and realised that yes, it is something that is necessary at this point in time for Nigerians,’ the Director stated.
‘We are giving all the support we can to UNIVASA to make Nigerians have a better travel experience.’
Also speaking, the Senior Special Assistant to the DGCA of NCAA, Mrs Ifueko Abdulmalik, explained that ‘we think that this would help passengers improve their travel experience. We know that there is a lot of issues with connectivity for passengers going out of Nigeria and coming into the country.
‘This is a way to encourage ease of communication at whatever point a passenger is. And NCAA feels that definitely it will improve passenger experience and then it will also help passengers find their way around and make travel a lot easier and more comfortable,’ she stated.
On his part, the Managing Director of UNIVASA, Dr Ben Adeniyi, said the company’s SIM arrangements are very important to travellers, ‘particularly for international travellers, or frequent international travellers because, the issue of connectivity is no more a small issue.
‘It is very important to have the UNIVASA eSIM or the P-SIM, as we call it. The P-SIM is the physical SIM card that helps those people who do not have an eSIM-enabled phone to still use the UNIVASA service.
‘So yes, it’s very important because it gives you connectivity in more than 150 countries, and about 200 plus destinations to remain on the internet.’
He noted that ‘compared with local operators, UNIVASA eSIM is very affordable because we purchase data in a very large volume, therefore, we are able to bring the price quite competitive.’
Giving her user experience, Engr Halimat Adediran stated that ‘with over 400 networks across the world, which means any country you find yourself, you can never be stranded. And then the beautiful thing is that the connectivity is seamless,’ she noted.