Bad weather, poor infrastructure, unruly passengers as bane of flight delays
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PIQUED by the pushback from tra vellers and regulators, airline operators have again blamed multiple factors for incessant flight delays, among which are extraneous issues that are beyond the reach of airlines.
Vice chairman of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, Allen Onyema, said besides inclement weather that borders on safety, there are also issues of inadequate infrastructure and menace of unruly passengers that also cost the operators heavily.
The factsheet of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority ( NCAA) stated 53 per cent of total fligh t s o p e rated in Nigeria in 2023 were delayed and one per cent were cancelled.
Onyema, who is also the Chairman of Air Peace Limited, said that every flight delay is not only a discomfort for the customers but also a loss for the operators.
He said besides the vicissitude of weather and infrastructure constraints, passenger behaviour constitutes the major cause of flight delays and loss of about N15 billion yearly. Onyema, quoting the International Civil A viation Organisation ( ICAO), said airlines contribute little to the cause of flight delays. But in Nigeria, besides the weather, VIP Movement and technical glitches, passenger beha viour is the major cause of delays and cancelled flights because Nigerian travellers have not embraced the culture of rescheduling when flights are cancelled.
He said the insistence of passengers, whose flights are cancelled, to be airlifted first the following day, had given rise to disruption of flights, which snowballed into weeks of delays and cancellations.
Onyema explained that airlines schedule the number of flights that must be operated by each aircraft but when a previous flight is cancelled, passengers’ insistence that they must be airlifted first before the airline operates its normal schedule, disrupts flight operations.
He said: “When the weather is the cause of the delay or leads to cancellation at the end of the day, it is not the business of the airline to fly the passenger whose flight was cancelled first thing the next morning, no.
“Aviation is the same worldwide. The convention is that the passenger is expected to reschedule to the next available date. That is how it is done. In Nigeria, you want to fly, and you have a three- hour delay because of the weather. And by the time the weather clears, you want to go in, and there is airport closure because most of the airports don’t run at night. And the passenger will tell you, even though you put us in a hotel, we will be the first ones to fly in the morning. It is not done like that, you reschedule to the next available date, because it is called scheduled flight operations,” Onyema said.
He said further that each aircraft does about six to eight flights a day. So, it is not only one disruption; you are about eight flights disrupted for that day.
“I will give you an example, the other day we were flying into Warri, we could not land because of the weather. The pilot hovered for about 15 minutes, but for safety, he diverted to Enugu because Benin was also covered by bad weather. “They stayed on the ground in Enugu for about an hour or two, then the weather cleared. The aircraft was fueled. The weather cleared for them to take off to Warri but the Warri airport was closed because it is a sunset airport.
“The pilot announced the closure of the airport because it is a sunset airport and said that the flight would return to base, which is Abuja. With that announcement, there was pandemonium everywhere, as the passengers started protesting against that decision.
“They brought the aircraft down and the captain was almost crying. They kept that aircraft on the ground in Enugu for four hours. They said we should put them in a hotel in Enugu. Why should I put you in a hotel in Enugu? Did I create the weather? Did I create the airport? That was a force majeure,” Onyema said.
The complexity of scheduled operations notwithstanding, stakeholders said that the airlines have a responsibility to customers in the face of delays or cancellations.
Senator representing Katsina Central senatorial district, Abdullaziz Yar'adua, said the aviation ministry should ensure that airlines prioritise passengers’ welfare, especially by opening channels for complaints and redress.
A footballer, Sixtus Omokhagbor, said airlines should be held accountable for delayed and cancelled flights and passengers should be adequately compensated.