BUSINESS 60% of local flights in Q1 delayed – Records Lagos Port access road will gulp N4.3b – NPA boss

Attacks on airline passengers have risen in recent times due to frequent flight delays as over 60 per cent of domestic flights operated in the first quarter of 2017 were delayed, findings by Daily Trust have shown.

Out of 10,366 flights operated between January and March, 2017, 6,789 were delayed, according to the summary of flights operations obtained by our correspondent.

Eight domestic carriers Aero Contractors, Arik Air, Dana Air, First Nation, Med-View, Azman Air, Air Peace and Overland operated the flights.

Daily Trust reports that following the high incidents of violent attacks on airline personnel across the nation’s airports, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had issued a stern warning on belligerent passengers who chose to take the law into their hands by attacking airline officials.

The regulatory authority issued the warning having been inundated with reports bothering on - passengers’ attitudes.

According to the flight operations report, despite the high number of flights delayed, only two complaints were received by the NCAA within the three - month period while in most cases some passengers vented their anger on airline personnel.

Experts say delays in aviation are inevitable especially when they were triggered by safety issues like bad weather (also known as force majeure), technical problems, among belligerent others.

Breakdown of the report showed that Air Peace displaced Arik Air in flight operations with 3,262 flights operated while 2, 036 of the flights were delayed.

Arik operated 1,665 flights, delayed 1059; Dana operated 1,525, delayed 1017; Med-View handled 1071, delayed 752; Azman operated 1196, had 826 delays; Aero recorded 806 flights and 610 delayed flights; Overland operated 511 flights and delayed 385 while First Nation operated 330 flights with 105 delayed January and 2017.

However, report indicated that the domestic carriers flew 735,825 in-bound passengers and 778,791 out-bound passengers which was a slight increase from 2016 figures of 674,960 and 710, 786 respectively.

Surprisingly the number of flights operated in 2016 quarter one which was 15,434 were more than the number operated this year.

Also 318 between March, domestic flights were cancelled in the period under review (2017 Q1).

Chairman of Air Peace, Barr. Allen Onyema said apart from weather and technical problems on airplanes, inadequate facilities at the airports also contribute to delays. He deceive a situation where over 1000 passengers would be struggling to use one screening point, saying this also leads to delay.

“At times, aircraft would arrive and the ground handling company would not bring the stair”, he said. FLIGHT

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