Our plan was to stop Turkish Airline from coming to Nigeria-Sidi

• restates vow to sanction foreign carriers
• Air France’s passenger petitions minister

The Acting Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Abdullahi Maikano Sidi, has warned foreign carriers to desist from taking Nigerian passengers for granted, stressing that the agency would not hesitate to apply sanctions to curb the menace.

Sidi, who spoke to Woleshadarenews in his office in Lagos, said the original plan of the aviation regulatory body was to stop Turkish Airline from operating to Nigeria following the crisis and commotion the Istanbul based carrier caused by leaving behind luggage of many Nigeria bound passengers shortly before last Yuletide.

He noted that stopping them from operating to Nigeria at that period would have caused travel disruptions for passengers already booked on the airline from all over the world; the reason NCAA issued ultimatum to the carrier to abide or risk suspension.

The action of the carrier led to protests and huge complaints from passengers to NCAA, which investigated the situation and found the airline wanting of rights violation of the passengers.

What this means is that because the Turkish airlines aircraft for Nigeria was too small, passengers were flown in one plane while their luggage had to be loaded separately on a different day.

On December 12, 2019, the NCAA disclosed that the suspension would take effect on Dec. 16 and remain until the airline operates with the right aircraft size and bring passengers into the country together with their checked-in baggage.

To that end, the authority said it was forced “to direct Turkish Airline to suspend its operations into Nigeria until such a time when the airline is ready to operate with the right size of aircraft that can transport all passengers with their baggage at the same time.”

However, before the suspension became effective, Turkish airlines pleaded for mercy.The NCAA met with the airline’s management to push them to do the right thing before the suspension took effect.

The airline changed its smaller B737 to a bigger A330 in apparent response to the suspension order.

Sidi’s reason for the meeting was that suspending the airline’s licencee would cause a lot of hardship for many Nigerians, who had booked flights on the carrier.

Turkish Airlines operates three flights to three destinations in Nigeria – Abuja and Lagos, once daily, and Port Harcourt, three times weekly.

His words: “ We wanted to take the action farther than what we did. We wanted to stop them but thought of a lot of hardship it would bring to many Nigerians who had booked flights on the airline. We will not sit down and watch airlines, particularly foreign airlines take our people for granted.

It is a signal to others that we will do what regulations permits us to do. We are closely monitoring some foreign airlines that are behaving in similar manner that they cannot take pasengers for granted any more.”

Meanwhile, a passenger, who pleased anonymity, has petitioned the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, management of NCAA over what he described as maltreatment of Nigeria bound passengers flying on Air France.

In an SOS letter sent to the Minister and NCAA, he said Abuja bound Air France Flight AF878  from Charles De Gaulle on December 29, 2019, took a detour to Chad without informing the passengers at the point of ticket purchase or even planning of trips.

To make matters worse, the source said when the flight finally got to Abuja, a quarter of the passengers luggage was no where to be found, while others that were lucky to see their luggage, their bags were opened and possibly pilfered from Paris and valuable items taken out.

Most of the passengers were coming from different countries and were supposed to proceed to further destinations in Nigeria to be able to spend the new year but could not do so, adding that some missed business meetings and the likes, “all because of Air France negligence and shabby treatment of Nigerians.”

“Up till now, some passengers have not recovered their missing luggage. This is also in addition to the fact that most of the time, Air France deliberately assigns old aircraft for the Nigerian leg of the journey as they did on November 2019.

“It is time that the aviation authorities investigated these shabby treatment of Nigerian inbound and outbound passengers from Charles De Gaulle Airport. Minister, Kindly do something about it please,” he pleaded.

Wole Shadare