The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has disclosed that Air Peace and Max Air accounted for the highest number of domestic flight delays between January and March 2023.
The report, released on Thursday, July 6 by the aviation authority, said that 10,128 domestic flights were delayed of the 18,288 domestic flights in the first quarter of 2023.
The NCAA, noting that the delayed flights represented 55 per cent of the total flights, added that 284 flights were cancelled.
The report said that Aero Contractors, Arik Air, Azman Air, Dana Air, Air Peace, Max Air, Ibom, United Nigeria Airlines, Green Africa, Value Jet and Overland Airways operated during the period of review, with Air Peace having the highest number of flights operation with 6,521 flights and 3,754 delays.
It said that Max Air accounted for 1,565 flights with 1,013 delays (60 per cent) and Arik Air 1,619 flights with 926 (47 per cent) delays.
The report stressed that United Nigeria Airlines recorded 910 delays out of 1,243 flights, while Ibom Air, which operated 2,312 flights, accounted for 746 delayed flights.
Aero Contractors recorded 1,123 flights, with 264 delayed.
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Other delay cases were Overland Airways with 719 flights and 605 delays, Dana Air with 711 flights with 474 delays, and Green Africa with 1182 flights and 443 delays.
While Azman Air airlifted passengers 527 times with 385 delays, Value Jet operated 766 flights with 248 delays.
Similarly, the NCAA noted 11 domestic airlines operating in the country had 284 flight cancellations in the first quarter of the year.
The report informed that Air Peace had the highest number of cancelled flights in the first quarter of 2023 with 63 flights, followed by Max Air with 56.
Other airlines with cancelled flights included Arik, 43; Aero Contractors, 40; Azman Air, 20; Green Africa, 16; Overland, 15; Value Jet, 15; Ibom Air, 9; Dana Air, 5; and United Airlines, 2.
The NCAA further mentioned that the Nigerian aviation market recorded 2,791,591 passengers, adding that passenger traffic indicated 1.40 million as outbound passengers, while 1.39 million were inbound air travellers.
According to the report, “The breakdown shows that while inbound passenger traffic of 375,700 was recorded, outbound traffic was 495,076 on the international routes.
“In the first quarter, 25 foreign airlines operated 3,073 flights on the international routes, while 11 domestic airlines operated 182,88 flights on domestic routes.”
In one instance, The ICIR had reported how Max Air dumped Lagos passengers in Abuja for hours without any explanation.
The flight, which took off from the Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, on Wednesday, June 28, arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at about 6:10pm.
The ICIR reported that the airline’s crew allegedly asked the passengers to disembark and promised to put them on another aircraft some minutes later.
The passengers, however, remained at the airport till 2:09am the following morning before a flight flew them to the Lagos airport by 2:56 am.
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I was to fly with Air Peace to Abuja in May.After different reschduling,I got to the airport few mins past 9am for a 10:30am flight. No plane but text @ 11:42am that flight had been rescheduled to 2pm.Return flight was moved to next day.I travelled back 7hrs by road.They shud pay.
A pastor with me was to have a meeting by 2pm in Abuja. He travelled down from Ilesha, ordered his driver to return to Ilesha.
He got his ticket and return ticket same day. According to him, that cost a lot of money.
Unfortunately for him, our flight was moved to 2pm. So, he called Abuja and was told to return to Ilesha because the meeting would start by 2pm. So, he would not meet up.
Mind you, his driver already got to Ilesha. He had to order the driver to buy fuel and come back to Akure to pick him up. It could only be a Pastor but I could understand his frustration.
It was my first flight experience but it was ruined.