Passengers Fight Air Nigeria Officials

The crisis steamrolling Air Nigeria yesterday took a serious turn with hundreds of aggrieved passengers stranded at airports nationwide for at least eight hours.

They fought officials and threatened to damage facilities at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two, MMA2, in Lagos State, South-West Nigeria.

Though the airline refused to comment on the long flight delays and cancellations that were worse than those involving the airline in recent weeks, sources within Air Nigeria disclosed that the airline, owned by billionaire businessman, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, ran out of fuel and did not have cash to pay marketers who refused to collect cheques.

As at 4 p.m. yesterday, only two Air Nigeria flights had taken off or landed nationwide. Sources said that only one out of 14 Lagos-Abuja-Lagos-bound flights had airlifted passengers within eight hours.

The 10.45 a.m. flight to Abuja was yet to depart Lagos at 3.30 pm and as angry air travellers did not get a plausible explanation from airline officials, they confronted them and a scuffle followed.

“Security officials were called to restore order after some passengers went up and began fighting,” an official at MMA2 told our correspondent. Some unnerved passengers were too angry for an interview. “Please no interview, I am too angry now to talk, I will say a bad and wrong thing,” a female passenger told our correspondent at the airline check-in point.

Other passengers sat on the floors, some with children and waited endlessly for the announcement from the airline.

Mrs. Arin, who was travelling to Owerri with her daughter and three grandchildren, did not know when or if she would travel yesterday.

“Nobody is telling us anything. We were to travel by 2.30 p.m. but here we are. It’s already 4p.m. and my daughter has gone to inquire. I hope we travel today,” she said.

Other passengers were advised not to buy tickets from the airline as their take-off was not certain.

Cabin crews wandered aimlessly at terminal buildings. “You know, it’s a one man-business,” a cabin crew told our correspondent yesterday at MMA2.

In an interview with the current edition of TheNews magazine, Dr. Ofiaju Mahonwu, Chairman of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, described airline business in Nigeria as sick.

“Aviation in Nigeria is sick. The airlines are just managing to break even. This is because of the exigencies of government’s rules and regulations. And a lot of taxes. Aviation is over-taxed in this nation. You pay landing, parking, tickets sales taxes and so on.

“It is not so in other parts of the world. In Nigeria, our way of doing things is always extraordinary. For instance, we started the aviation fuel business here.

“When Obasanjo came into power, it was N22 per litre. Now it is N184 per litre. That is the situation in which we find ourselves. Things are not stabilised. There is no standard. The marketers usually take up the mantle to hike price, which can disorganise us. So, the airlines too, will have to keep increasing fares. If you charge us (Airline Operators of Nigeria) 20 – 30 per cent more on fuel, we will be left with no choice than to charge 20 – 30 per cent higher on flight tickets,” Mahonwu said.

By Simon Ateba