Appalling Flight Delays and Cancellations in NIgeria?
The skyrocketing flight delays and cancellations among the Nigerian airlines is a source of concern for air travellers, stakeholders and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
Countless times, frustrated air passengers have become irate following flight delays and cancellations by some of the Nigerian airlines.
On a few occasions, facilities of airlines like check-in counters, computers, public address system and others have been vandalised by angry passengers, while terminal operators like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Lagos have not been spared by the passengers who some of the airline operators described as “unruly.”
Despite these obvious shortcomings, some of the airline operators have consistently showcased between 80 per cent to 85 per cent on-time departure and reliability.
But, an executive summary on international and domestic operations for the first half of 2024, obtained from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) recently, revealed that such statistics as reeled out by the airlines were inaccurate.
In fact, the 13 domestic airlines’ statistics fell like a pack of badly arranged cards. They fell short of industry standards and were unencouraging.
In total, the executive summary indicated that Nigerian airlines had a combined 19,250 flight delays, representing 48 per cent, while 696 of their 35,398 flights, showing 2 per cent were outrightly cancelled within the period.
According to the executive summary, Dana Air, whose operations were suspended on April 24, 2024 over alleged safety concerns had the highest number of delays with 69 per cent out of its 1,446 operated. In all, the airline had 999 delays within the four months period of its operations.
The breakdown of the executive summary indicated that Aero Contractor had 37 per cent delays with 1,992 operations, out of which 740 flights were delayed.
Besides, Arik Air had 59 per cent delays, indicating 1,378 delays out of its 2,331 flights operated within the period.
Also, Overland Airways operated 1,227 flights with 696 delays, showing 57 per cent delays.
Air Peace, the biggest Nigerian airline, had 11,111 flights with 5,350 of the flights delayed, representing 48 per cent.
Max Air operated 2,297 flights, out of which 1,247 of which were delayed, indicating 54 per cent of total delays between January and June 2024.
Besides, Ibom Air, which operated 3,879 flights within the period under review, had 1,508 delays, showing 39 per cent of the total delays within the period.
For United Nigeria Airlines, it operated 3,912 flights within the period, had 2,439 delays, showing 62 per cent of total delays, according to the document.
Also, Green Africa Airways operated 2,368 flights, had 836 delays, showing that 35 per cent of its flights were delayed within the period.
For ValueJet, it performed 1,659 flights within the period, had 582 flight delays, showing 35 per cent of its total delays by the airline within the period under review.
Rano Air operated 2,464 in six months with 761 delays within the period, indicating 31 per cent delays.
NG Eagle, which commenced scheduled flight services last December, operated 567 flights with 333 delays, indicating 59 per cent of flight delays.
Also, the executive summary showed that Azman Air operated 145 flights in the first half of 2024, but had 76 delays, indicating 52 per cent of delays within the period.
Also, further breakdown of the executive summary shows that Aero Contractors had 33 cancelled flights, which is 2 per cent of its total flights; Arik Air had 32 cancelled flights, indicating 1 per cent of its total operations.
Besides, Overland Airways had 57 cancelled flights, showing 5 per cent of its total flights; Air Peace had 294 cancelled flights, showing 3 per cent of its total flights; Max Air had 23 flight cancellations, representing 1 per cent of its total flights.
Also, Ibom Air had 71 cancelled flights, showing 2 per cent of its total flights within the period; United Nigeria had 82 flights cancelled in the first half of 2024, showing 2 per cent of its total flights and Green Africa had 50 of its scheduled flights cancelled, showing 2 per cent within the period.
ValueJet had 18 of its 1,659 flights cancelled within the period, showing 1 per cent of its total operations; Rano Air had 14 per cent cancelled flights, showing 1 per cent delays; NG Eagle had 15 flight delays out of its 2,464 flights, showing 1 per cent of its flights.
However, only Azman Air with 145 flights within the period, according to the executive summary, did not have any flight delays.
AON Excuses
But, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) has refused to take the blame for most of the flight delays, including cancellations. Dr. Allen Onyema, the Vice President, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), said that most of the delays and cancellations result from factors beyond their control.
He mentioned passenger behaviour as one of the major causes of flight delays in Nigeria, arguing that travellers had refused to accept the culture of rescheduling when flights are cancelled.
“Let me tell you why delays and cancellations will persist in this country. Apart from safety, security, weather and other issues, it is unruly passenger behaviour. The misunderstanding of how airlines’ scheduled operations are supposed to be run is a major cause of flight delays,” he said.
Other ‘Necessary’ Factors
According to AON, 80 per cent of flight delays and cancellations in Nigeria were due to poor infrastructure, which are highly disruptive to normal schedule reliability and on-time performance and rising cost of Jet A1 and inadequate parking space for aircraft on the apron sometimes leading to ground accidents.
AON also mentioned inadequate screening and exit points at departure, inefficient passenger access and facilitation, natural and unforeseen circumstances such as weather and catastrophic failures (e.g. bird strikes & component failures), and restrictions caused by sunset airports among others.
NCAA Intervention
The industry apex regulatory agency, NCAA has expressed worry over the high flight delays and cancellations in the country. The agency recently unveiled a consumer protection portal to address issues and agitations arising from flight delays and cancellations.
Just last week, it again introduced another portal known as the Centralised Passenger Information Portal (CPIP) to provide an additional layer of protection for air travel consumers.
Mr. Michael Achimugu, Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, NCAA, while speaking on the new initiative, said that the agency was seeking additional layers of protection for air travellers.
He described the passengers as the kings of the industry who must be protected much better than was being done at the moment.
Need To Cut Routes For Local Airlines
Some of the stakeholders in the sector have suggested reduction in operating routes of some of the domestic airlines to checkmate flight delays and cancellations. For instance, some of them proposed that any airline with just two aircraft in its fleet should be restricted to a maximum of four routes and limited landings daily.
Speaking on the issue, Mr. Chris Aligbe, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Belujane Konzult, said that operations of any airline with just about two aircraft should be limited to certain services. Aligbe lamented that while most Nigerian airlines had fallen below the dustry standard in sched¬ule integrity, the reverse was the case with Africa World Airlines (AWA) from Ghana, which its image had received a boost in re¬cent years.
Aligbe called on the NCAA to give a template to the airlines, depending on their operating aircraft, stressing that with this, delays and cancellations would be minimised.
The former image mak¬er of Nigeria Airways, the defunct national carrier, also wondered why the air¬lines had refused to collab¬orate or partner with each other despite the push for it, maintaining that none of them could go it alone.
He said: “There is no reason an airline with just two aircraft should not be told the number of routes it can fly by the NCAA. For instance, the NCAA can say that if you have two air¬craft, you cannot do more than a maximum of five routes.
“We can upscale it that way; we do not need to go very far. Look at AWA for instance, the airline started how many years ago? It cut off all the West Coast flights and only flies in Nigeria and Ghana. In Nigeria, it flies into Lagos and Abuja multiple times.”
Also, Mr. Olumide Ohu¬nayo, Director, Research, Zenith Travels, said that restraining airlines with reduced fleet to limited routes would improve the integrity of the aviation value chain in Nigeria – airlines, regulator (NCAA) and the passengers.
Ohunayo declared that industry norm was for air¬lines with depleted fleets to suspend operations into some of their routes, pend¬ing the return of their air¬planes, but decried that the reverse was the case with Nigerian airlines, which still wanted to keep their existing routes, irrespec¬tive of the unpleasant sit¬uation.
Like Aligbe, Ohunayo regretted that Nigerian airlines had failed to have proper commercial agree¬ment like codeshare, inter¬line and others with each other, recalling that Avia¬tion Round Table (ART), industry pressure group, in one of its breakfast meet¬ings, came up with reso-lutions on collaboration among the airlines, yet, they resisted it.
