THE Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) yesterday made good its threat to ground operations of domestic carriers, which owe her over N1 billion debt for ground handling services rendered to them.

The agency began the clampdown on Virgin Nigeria, by refusing to carry out the mandatory aircraft pushback for the airline's Monrovia and Accra flights yesterday morning.

However, the management of Virgin Nigeria, sensing the implication of grounding its international operations, quickly got an undertaking with the Managing Director of NAHCO, Sule Bates, to pay half of the N100 million debt.

After the undertaking, the NAHCO boss instructed that the carrier be allowed to go ahead with its operations.

Spokesman for Virgin Nigeria, Francis Ayigbe, confirmed the development, stressing that, "the ground handling issue experienced on flight VK807 has been resolved with the aircraft departing at 09:12 am."

This is one of the series of actions NAHCO is taking to recover the huge debts owed her by many of the carriers, which are finding it extremely difficult in the face of dwindling fortunes, occasioned by the global economic recession, to pay up.

Arik Air is reported to owe NAHCO N250 million. While Arik cited damage to its aircraft for its inability to liquidate its debt to the firm, the company has gone to court to seek redress.

NAHCO is also said to be rendering ground-handling services to Aero and Bellview airlines, among others.

NAHCO's head of Corporate Communication and Business Development, Mr. Ademola Akinbola, confirmed the incident to The Guardian yesterday.

The blockage action, according to him, was in protest against Virgin Nigeria's outstanding indebtedness to NAHCO, said to be in the region of N100 million.

His words: "It was unfortunate that the matter degenerated to that extent despite repeated verbal and written appeals to Virgin Nigeria to pay the debts. We appreciate Virgin's current challenges and are ready to partner with them to succeed. But we have a business to run and we are accountable to our over 80,000 shareholders.

"We run a highly capital intensive business where purchase and maintenance of ground handling equipment and other transactions are not only done on cash and carry basis, but also denominated in foreign currencies.

"We did not set out to embarrass or hurt Virgin. It was a pure business decision we had to take, to protect our business interest. I hope they saw it in that light."

Akinbola disclosed that following the interventions of the chief executives of the two companies, and a promise by Virgin Nigeria to pay part of the debt by this week, the aircraft was eventually allowed to take off.

He, however, appealed to all the cargo and passenger airlines that owe NAHCO to pay up promptly.

He noted that all airlines both local and international owe the handling firms, stating that the local operators were more in debt, stressing that work was ongoing on how to recover the money.

"The airlines are collecting money up front from the passengers and if you are collecting money up front, then you should be paying us up front," he asserted.

He said that contracts with the airlines stipulate a 60-day credit window and once it is 60 days, "we expect them to pay us to run our business."

"Some of these debits have been on since 2006 and we are worried about the rising profile of indebtedness from the airlines," he said.