An aviation union in Nigeria, National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), has declared the Mr. Lokman Balkan, the General Manager of Turkish Airlines in Lagos, Mr. Lokman Balkan, persona non granta.
The union, in a statement, signed by the General Secretary, Comrade Aba Ocheme, said it was compelled to take the decision to address the attempts by the airline’s manager to assassinate the characters of seven of its members recently dismissed by the airline.
The union also threatened that if Balkan refused to desist from maligning the workers, it would direct aviation workers not to handle him at any Nigerian airport except on his way out of the country even as it added that if not satisfied with the conducts of the airline’s manager against his Nigerian workers, it will escalate his case to the global aviation union body which will ensure his exit from the Aviation industry globally.
“On our part, however, NUATE has declared Lokman Balkan persona non grata. We shall instruct all aviation workers not to handle him at any Nigerian airport, except at his exit from Nigeria. And if compelled, NUATE shall internationalize his ostracizing from the global aviation family, the statement said.
On the allegation that the seven dismissed unionists were involved in a $600,000 ticket racketeering, NUATE which insisted that the airline didn’t lose any money, alleged that it was one of the well orchestrated attempts by Balkan to crinminaly nail the workers.
The union argued that if the airline had lost any money e at all, it was as a result of the wrong sales strategy it adopted and the issues associated with the inability of the airlines to repatriate funds from Nigeria because of the foreign exchange constraints experienced at the period.
It affirmed that all the tickets sold during the period were properly remitted to the airline’s headquarters and receipted for.
“The National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, feels obliged to respond to this awful attempt by the Airline to stand truth on its head. We wish to let the public and stakeholders know that the accusations are blatant and poorly formulated lies. And we wish to tell the truth as follows.
“In the first place, the claim that the Airline lost $600,000 is mere phantom. What happened is that sometime in April, 2023, Turkish Airlines’ headquarters issued a sales restriction circular which allowed sales of only two premium classes of tickets as a response to foreign airlines’ difficulty in repatriating their proceeds to home countries due to foreign exchange constraints in Nigeria. But, in a contradicting manner the Airline had an advertised fare on the website which was much lower than the permitted fares. Therefore, intending passengers who accessed such fare, but could not pay online were directed by the global call center to approach the Nigerian offices. As the workers could not attend to the customers due to the sales restriction, the passengers resorted to creating ugly scenes at the sales offices which became riotous at times,” NUATE explained.
It continued, “As an image saving measure, the then sales manager asked the sales staff to use the PNR obtained online by the customers to process the tickets if the Airline’s booking system could route the tickets. The sales staff simply complied. As a matter of fact, the then sales manager, a Turkish national, sold this tickets too to confirm that this was the local management’s approved approach to resolving the problem created by the website.
“The Airline’s accountants received all due monies from all tickets sold and all sales report were daily submitted to sales manager, signed by him and accounts department and scanned to HQ. If monies were not fully received, the account would not have balanced, and sales could not have been concluded. Therefore, no monies belonging to Turkish Airlines is missing. And no staff has taken any monies belonging to Turkish Airlines. Importantly, no staff had any pecuniary benefit from the so called internet sales.”
