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Foreign Carriers Operate 1,871 Flights To Nigeria –NCAA
…as domestic airlines record 14, 662
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit airlines, coupled with restrictions imposed by some countries, foreign airlines operated a total of 1871 in and out of Nigeria while 14,662 flights operated on domestic routes from January to March 2021, according to the executive summary on international and domestic flights from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) made available to Aviation Metric.
The breakdown shows that a total of 19 foreign airlines operated within that period while there were 562 cases of delayed flight, nine flights cancelled, four air return, a total number of 2690 delayed/missing luggage. Total number of baggage found was 2549, two persons denied boarding.
The international carriers that operated to Nigeria included African World, Air Cote d’Ivoire, Air France, Air Peace, ASKY Airline, British Airways, Delta Airline, Egypt Air, Emirates. Others are Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Middle East Airline, Qatar Air, Royal Air Maroc, RwandAir, Turkish Airline and Virgin Atlantic Airways.
On the domestic route, nine scheduled airlines operated 14,662 flights with 7554 delayed flights, 149 cancelled flights, 18 air return and 64 cases of missing/ delayed baggage, 10 overbooking and denied boarding and five persons with complaints of pilferage/ discourtesy among others.
The domestic airlines that operated within the same period included Aero, Arik, Azman, Dana Air, Overland Airways, Max Air, Ibom Air and United Nigeria Airline. Statistics show that African World, Air Cote d’Ivoire, Air France, Air Peace, Egypt Air, Emirates, ASKY Kenyan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Middle East Airline, RwandAir, Virgin Atlantic reported no complaints of lost baggage, flight delays, missing baggage, air return, cancelled flights among other sundry travel issues.
Air Peace’s case is different as the carrier had since ceased flights to Johannesburg and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to impasse between Nigeria and the UAE over modalities for the conduct of COVID-19 tests for Nigerians travelling to Dubai and UAE.
Interestingly, some folks desperate to travel to Dubai from Nigeria go to the extent of smuggling themselves into Ghana to avoid having their passports stamped with the Nigerian “exit” stamp.
Air Peace had also not been able to operate scheduled flights to Johannesburg, South over a spike in the cases of COVID-19. For the month of January 2021, British Airways recorded one complaint, two for the month of February, amounting to total of three complaints resolved by the aviation regulatory body, the NCAA.
Ethiopian Airlines had total number of three complaints in January, two in February while two of them had been resolved while Qatar had one case resolved by the NCAA.
Domestic airlines recorded avalanche of complaints. Aero Contractors had two complaints that were yet to be resolved. Arik Air had seven reported cases in January, 2021 that were all resolved; three in February that were also resolved; ten in March with nine resolved, bringing the total number of cases to 20 with 19 resolved and one outstanding.
Azman had just two cases in March as they were said to have been resolved. Dana, on the other hand, had just one complaint in February, one case in March that had been resolved. Overland had one case that had been cleared; Air Peace had six in February, two in March, five resolved while one is outstanding.
Max Air had no complaint; Ibom Air was credited with four complaints in the month of March that had been resolved; United Nigerian Airline had seven complaints out of which the seven had been resolved. In summary, a total of 47 complaints came against the airlines while a total number of 41 cases had been resolved.
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