Flight delays/cancellation: Killing joy of air travel in Nigeria
While passenger traffic is increasing marginally, the joy of air travel is fast diminishing in Nigeria’s aviation sector with astronomical rate of flight delays and cancellations. WOLE SHADARE writes
Quick facilitation
Time is of essence in global aviation business. Just a minute delay, according to experts, is enough to ruin an entire operation and cost the airlines dearly.
In other airports around the world, the standard time for processing a passenger through the checkpoint screening is about two minutes. Some best of the bunch airports process faster.
In Nigeria, it is less seamless and for many reasons. While screening bottleneck is the main constraint at Air Peace’s General Aviation Terminal (GAT), Lagos, there are other factors ranging from the chain reaction of such morning delays, low capacity to execute schedule, aviation fuel shortage and technical issues, among others under the umbrella of “operational issues” often given as excuses for flight delays.
Blame game
Recent flight delays and cancellations have been blamed on several factors including epileptic fuel supply, inadequate airport infrastructure, unruly passengers, among others.
Air travel on its own is a hectic experience; even when everything goes according to plan. So when there is the added challenge of unexpected delays or cancellations, it starts to feel more like ‘living through hell’.
In Nigeria, airlines are quick to cancel domestic flights on the grounds of factors such as extreme weather, mechanical malfunctions and workers strike actions, and this continually throws the plans of thousands of travellers in the country into disarray. Flight delay by domestic airlines went unabated and has continued to take the joy out of air travel. As a result, domestic airlines operating in Nigeria recorded 36,350 cases of delayed flights between January and December 2018. This was contained in statics released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
Air Peace leads others
Nigeria’s biggest airline, Air Peace ranks first as the airline with the highest 14, 069 flight delayed, 137 cancelled flights and operated 22, 055 flights.
The statistics from the apex aviation regulatory body shows that 59,818 flights were operated by nine airlines during the period under review.
According to the document, 544 flights were cancelled for various reasons by the airlines.
NCAA listed airlines in operation as Max Air, Dana Air, First Nation, Overland, Arik, Azman Aero Contractors, Air Peace and Medview.
Next in line was Arik Air with 8,073 delayed flights and 152 cancellations out of its scheduled 15,205 flight operations.
Dana Air on the other hand, operated 5,944 flights with 3,915 cases of delayed flights and 67 cancellations.
Azman Air recorded 3,242 and 49 delayed and cancelled flights respectively, out of the 4,944 flights operated by the airline during the period under review.
Also, Aero Contractors operated 4,361 flights with 2,459 delayed and 70 cancellations; Overland, 601 flights with 1,960 delayed and 29 cancellations; and Medview, 2058 flights with 1,256 delayed and 42 cancellations.
Max Air recorded 1,151 delays and five cancellations, out of the 2,205 flights operated by the airline.
Similarly, FirstNation Airways, whose licence has been suspended by the NCAA, recorded 137 delayed flights and three cancellations, out of 445 flights operated within the period under review.
However, the delays, according to the airlines, were due to operational reasons, bordering on scarcity of aviation fuel as well as adverse weather conditions leading to low visibility at most of the airports.
Spokesman for NCAA, Mr Sam Adurogboye, said one of the major ways to reduce flight delays was the construction of modern terminals or remodelling of old ones to ease passenger facilitation.
Adurogboye said, “some of these problems are infrastructural related. The government is remodelling most of the airports and this will ease passenger facilitation.
“By the time these modern facilities are deployed, it will curb unnecessary delays.
“However, issues like adverse weather or a machine (aircraft) developing a problem cannot be ruled out, and you can’t expect them to fly with a machine that had developed problem. Those ones happen occasionally.
“So, we hope that very shortly, these delays will be reduced drastically, and we are working toward that.”
Lamentation
An airline official, who spoke to New Telegraph on condition of anonymity said, “Time is of essence in global aviation business. Just a minute delay, is enough to ruin an entire operation and cost the airlines dearly”.
In other airports around the world, the standard time for processing a passenger through the checkpoint screening is about two minutes. Some best of the bunch airports process faster.
It is not as if airlines do not cancel flights when there is bad weather or technical problems, but the way most of the airlines do leaves much to be desired.
In past few months, airlines have recorded more cancellations, delays, without a reasonable reason other than the excuse that the weather was bad. At times, they put the blame on scarcity of aviation fuel. That is not true. Is aviation fuel scarcity limited to domestic airlines alone? How come international airlines do not experience same hiccups? Is there more to it than the alleged deception of scarcity of JET A1 or bad weather?
A frequent traveller had a harrowing experience in the hands of official of an airline recently. The flight scheduled to depart at noon was delayed till 6pm when the flight was eventually cancelled.
All efforts to get reason for the cancellation could not yield fruit as the officials whom he described as arrogant and rude could only come up with the excuse of fuel scarcity.
Challenge
Incessant flight cancellations remain a challenge for airlines and demands for compensations by flyers seldom pitch distraught passengers against erring airlines. Albeit Nigeria regulatory authority, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) efforts to ameliorate and mediate in issues as they arise, passengers said there is more ground to cover by all those involved.
Passengers’ satisfaction, no doubt, remains the basic impetus that holds the key to the successes of any airline business. When they complain of any unpleasant experience or ill-treatment upon the purchase of a flight ticket (s) until they arrive at their destinations, they are guests of the airline and expect to be accorded due courtesies.
Flight cancellations, especially one too many, be it mechanical or otherwise, rude flight attendants, poor in-flight services, delays and leaving passengers in the dark without information as well numerous other bad deals is a pointer that the airline may well be on its way to extinction or kiss the canvass if passengers’ complaints are ignored.
A stakeholder once said: “Because the airlines know that most passengers are not aware that they have a right to complain and get financial compensation when they don’t get the right services, the airlines tend to get away with the unscrupulous act, violate passengers’ right and subject them to physical and financial trauma.”
Last line
In Nigeria; it is a chain that is also complicated in nature and one that has persisted despite efforts by the regulatory body and airlines to rectify the situation.
