The crisis between Nigerian air carrier Air Peace and the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado-Bayero, took a new turn at the weekend when the chief protocol officer of the monarch, Isah Bayero, gave the airline a 72-hour ultimatum to offer an apology for “disrespecting” the Emir and causing him to miss his flight.
Mr Bayero, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday, insisted that the airline must also accept its mistake for not flying on schedule, which he said caused the delay and left the Emir stranded in Lagos.
Earlier, in a petition to the NCAA, Mr Bayero, popularly known as Isa Pilot, had said the airline delayed their Banjul (Gambia) to Lagos flight by over one hour and then refused to allow the entourage of the emir to board a connecting flight to Kano.
He said the entourage had arrived in Lagos 30 minutes before departure time.
Background
In the petition, Mr Bayero explained how he called Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema, to request him to delay the airline’s morning flight to Kano because of the Banjul incident.
![Nigerian businessman and founder of Air Peace Limited, Allen Onyema. [PHOTO CREDIT: Thisday Live]](https://i2.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2019/11/Allen-Onyema.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
“He flatly refused and avowed that he would not do that. I personally took this as an insult and a flagrant show of disrespect to His Highness and the Kano people at large,” Mr Bayero wrote of Mr Onyema in the petition.
But in its response Friday, Air Peace described the allegations as ‘deliberate falsehood’ peddled against the airline.
The airline’s Chief Operating Officer, Toyin Olajide, argued that Air Peace holds the Emir of Kano in the highest regards and contrary to the insinuation that the emir was disrespected, the airline indeed protected the image of the traditional ruler “by not succumbing to what Isa Bayero wanted us to do.”
The statement said: “If we had agreed to stop and delay an aircraft, already set to take-off, for another one hour only for the doors to be opened and the Emir to walk in, there would have been a very serious uproar in the media nationwide against both the airline and the Emir. This we pleaded with Isa Bayero to understand but he refused to accept.
“How could Isa Bayero want the Management of Air Peace to stop and delay a fully boarded plane with doors already shut and aircraft already moving while our respected Emir and eight others in his entourage, including Isa Bayero, were still at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos after arriving from Banjul?”
Air Peace explained that from the telephone log evidence on the phone of Mr Onyema, its Chairman/CEO, Mr Bayero called at about 5.52am, a time the CEO was still sleeping.
From the log, the airline said, it could be seen that Mr Bayero called him again at 5.59am which obviously woke him up.
“On seeing that it was Isa Bayero calling, he took the call. Isa told our Chairman that he and the Emir of Kano had just landed the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos from Banjul, Gambia and would be proceeding to Kano same morning,” the airline said.
“He told the Chairman to delay our first flight of the day, the 6:15 am Lagos-Kano flight for him and the Emir with another eight persons. It was not true that our Chairman refused flatly. He rather told Mr. Isa Bayero to give him a few minutes to call the airport to find out the status of the flight. I was the one he called. To show his desire to help, he called me immediately and intimated me with the request.
“I am the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Air Peace. I quickly called the local airport from where we carry on our day to day domestic flight operations and was told that the aircraft had since finished boarding and was almost taxiing out.”
The crisis has, predictably, created ripples across Nigerian social media platforms.
While many Nigerians condemned Mr Bayero’s request to delay a flight because of the Emir, others have also expressed reservations about the shabby manners airlines treat customers whose itinerary and business schedules they disrupt with flight delays and abrupt cancellation.
In 2019, according to a report by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), there were 41,968 recorded cases of missing and delayed luggage in Nigeria. The agency also recorded the operation of 65,401 flights, of which 37,510 ( about 57%) were delayed and 356 were cancelled.
Last December, PREMIUM TIMES reported how the rising spate of delayed and cancelled flights has been a major worry for many Nigerians, amid weak regulations.
Lingering Questions
As the Air Peace-Kano Emirate crisis deepens, PREMIUM TIMES observes that a key question of consumer protection in the face of weak regulations remains unanswered.
In his petition to the NCAA, Mr Bayero specifically claimed that despite having to check into a hotel at personal cost, the airline also requested them to pay a “no-show” fee when they wanted to rebook the next available flight of the airline which was by 7 pm.
“This is an extreme case of insensitivity and callousness. In view of the foregoing, I feel strongly aggrieved and demand your kind intervention for restitution and for appropriate measures to be taken to stop this unwholesome development from happening in the future,” he wrote in his petition to the NCAA.
Curiously, in its press statements released to clarify the issues, the airline did not address this concern
On Sunday, the airline said the Banjul-Lagos flight terminated in Lagos and had no connection with any other destination. But it did not address the allegation of asking the Emir to pay for “no show”. It did not also address the delay in Banjul.
In a telephone conversation with PREMIUM TIMES Monday morning, Stanley Olisa, Airpeace spokesperson, declined to respond to the allegation. When this newspaper repeated the allegation and asked for clarity, he hung up the call.
According to Part 19.6.1 of the NCAA Regulations, “…when an operating air carrier reasonably expects a flight to be delayed beyond its scheduled time of departure, it shall provide the passengers with reason(s) for the delay within 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time…”
Similarly, the airline is expected to provide assistance in forms of refreshments, after two hours. It is also expected to provide telephone calls, SMS and E-mails. If it is at a time beyond 10pm till 4am, or at a time when the airport is closed at the point of departure or final destination, it must provide necessary assistance, including hotel accommodation and transport.
Expert Intervenes
John Ojikutu, a former commandant of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, told PREMIUM TIMES Monday morning that it was wrong to expect that the airline would halt the departure of a flight that was ready for take-off because of another passenger.
However, he expressed reservations about Air Peace’s conduct thus far.
“All these things that are going on, they are not very necessary,” he said in a telephone interview.
“We do all sorts of things politically in this country, which is wrong. What Air Peace needed to do when they got to know about the personality involved is to apologise and move forward. Otherwise, there might be a little bit of problems for Air Peace operations in Kano. If we continue to move this way, they will turn it into a political issue and there will be problems.
The Emir can sue Air Peace for delaying their flight from Banjul to Lagos, and Air Peace can never win that case. That’s why I said that they have to be very careful.”
Speaking about the regulatory environment, the aviation expert said the major concern was regulatory failure that makes it difficult to instill discipline within the system.
He said: “I keep saying that the NCAA itself is not doing a proper oversight, and nobody seems to trust them. The airline themselves don’t trust them.
“What they would have done is to carry the case to NCAA: ‘They delayed my flight and that’s why I couldn’t catch up with this flight and they are now telling me to pay’.”
He insisted, however, that the passengers can sue Air Peace and warned of the consequences for its business operations.
“They can sue Air Peace, and I am telling you they will win the case against the airline, especially if they had a delay, whether they were able to catch up with the flight or not. Unfortunately for Air Peace, the two airlines belong to them. So that’s why I said they have to handle it very carefully: apologise to the people. I mean, if they do it to somebody like me (the ordinary Nigerian) they can be making all this type of noise.
“If it happens to me, I will go to the NCAA and report, and I know how it will end up. A common man can go to court; if anybody goes to court on a case like this, he would win against them (Air Peace). One, it’s your flight (and) you delayed that flight and as a result, I cannot catch up with the other one. What do you do? You apologise! You now want to charge me again on your own flight again? Extra money? No, it doesn’t make sense.”
