Air Peace has challenged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority's (NCAA) report on flight disruptions for August. The airline claims the regulator did not report its flight operations correctly. They also say the NCAA failed to consider outside factors that led to delays during the month.
In a statement on Thursday, the airline said it operated 2,564 flights in August. This is much higher than the 1,864 flights the NCAA recorded for the airline in its report.
Air Peace mentioned that this difference of over 700 flights impacted the calculation of its delay rate. They said it does not show their true operational performance.
PREMIUM TIMES had previously reported that the NCAA tracked 7,961 domestic flights in August. Out of these, 4,765 were delayed and 36 were cancelled.
Air Peace had the most delayed flights, with 1,330 delays from the 1,864 flights noted by the NCAA. This means about seven out of ten of its listed flights were delayed.
The NCAA's report indicated that 666 of Air Peace's delays lasted between 16 minutes and one hour. Additionally, 400 delays lasted between one and two hours. There were 156 delays between two and three hours, and 108 delays lasted three hours or more. The airline also had seven cancellations.
But the NCAA did not break down the reasons for these delays into specific internal or external causes.
Air Peace said it did an internal review of its August flight data. They found that 391 delayed flights were due to issues within the airline's operations.
The airline pointed out that these 391 flights made up 15 percent of the total delays recorded for that month. They claimed the remaining disruptions were due to external factors.
The internal issues included technical problems needing unscheduled maintenance and fuel-related challenges.
Air Peace stated that airport congestion and traffic accounted for over 51 percent of the delays caused by external factors.
Other external issues included bird strikes, problems with airport infrastructure, bad weather, industrial action by aviation unions, and damage to an aircraft by a ground-handling company.
The airline noted that the industrial action that started on 11 August affected its operations for more than 14 days. This led to rescheduling, cancellations, and disruptions to later flight rotations.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that aviation unions disrupted Air Peace operations starting on 11 August. This industrial dispute left many passengers affected and forced the airline to change its operations.
Air Peace also mentioned a bird strike on one of its planes, 5N-BYG, in Abuja.
The airline said this bird strike caused damage to the aircraft’s inlet cowl. The repairs would cost around $1.8 million.
The aircraft, which usually operated at least eight flights a day and carried about 1,000 passengers, was out of service for over a week while the damaged part was replaced.
Air Peace stated that this aircraft's absence caused further disruptions in its flight schedule.
Air Peace questioned why the NCAA started its monthly flight disruption reports with August instead of July. They pointed out that the NCAA published its first and second-quarter reports on 31 July.
The airline also said the August report came out only 13 days after the month ended. They argued it should have included details about the industrial action and other factors affecting flight operations.
Air Peace also wanted to know why the report did not separate delays caused by airlines from those due to airport issues, congestion, weather, and other external factors.
The airline urged the NCAA to review and improve its data collection methods. They want future reports to accurately show airlines' operations and the reasons for flight disruptions.
Air Peace said it is committed to improving its internal processes and reducing delays it can control. However, they argued that airlines cannot fix problems like airport congestion, poor infrastructure, and bad weather on their own.
The NCAA has not yet publicly responded to Air Peace’s concerns.
Drop your comment
No comments yet — be the first to drop the gist 👇