According to a report obtained from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigerian aviation industry recorded 11,321 flight delays in 21,295 flights among 36 domestic and international airlines in the first quarter of 2023.
Within the time frame under consideration, 25 international airlines had 1,193 flight delays, while 11 domestic operators had 10,128 flight delays.
11,321 Flight Delays in the First Quarter of 2023
Dr Alex Nwuba, President of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria (AOPAN), stated that the airlines could not be held solely responsible for the delays, citing a number of factors.
According to the report, Ethiopian Airlines and Asky Airlines experienced the most flight delays on the international scene, with 115 and 107 delays on 270 and 295 flights, respectively, while Air Peace experienced the most delays on the domestic scene, with 3,754 delays on 6,521 flight operations during the period.
Africa World Airlines (AWA) had 97 delays, Air Cote d’Ivoire; 92, Air France; 25, Air Peace (international routes); 167, BADR Airlines; 15, British Airways; 83, Cronos Airlines; nine, Delta Airlines; 17 and Egypt Air had 96 flight delays in the first quarter of 2023.
Kenya Airways; 47, KLM Airlines; 22, Lufthansa Airlines; 19, Middle East Airlines; four, Qatar Airways; 82, Royal Air Maroc; 32 Rwandair; 65, Saudi Airlines; 28, South African Airways; eight, TAAG Angola; six, Tarco Airlines; two, Turkish Airlines; 43, United Airlines; one and Virgin Atlantic Airways with 11 delayed flights are also among the others.
On the domestic front, Air Peace experienced 3,754 flight delays out of 6,521 total flights, representing approximately 60% of its total flights.
Max Air, which had 1,565 flights in the first quarter, had 1,013 delays, representing a 75% delay in its operations.
Aero Contractors; 624, Arik Air; 926, Azman Air; 385, Dana Air; 472, Overland Airways; 605, Ibom Air; 746, United Nigeria Airways; 910, Green Africa Airways; 443, and Value Jet also experienced 248 flight delays during the period.
Airlines and infrastructure have been blamed
Flight delays, according to Dr Alex Nwuba, President of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria (AOPAN), are a shared responsibility of airlines and airport authorities, particularly the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
In an interview with Nairametrics, Nwuba expressed regret that some airlines, particularly Nigerian carriers, lacked on-time schedule integrity but insisted that several factors were to blame.
For example, he cited inadequate infrastructure and weather-related events as some of the causes of the delays.
He said:
Something about the aviation industry is that when anything happens, we attribute it to the airlines. The delays that occur at the airports, are they the faults of the airlines?
We understand that our airlines, have a reputation for poor service and we can’t do anything about it. The consequences of poor services are delays, but to a bigger picture, one must look a the other consequences.
Take the Abuja airport for example, the check-in area is too small for the volume of aircraft that operate at a particular time. So, if you come on time to fly out, by the time your passengers go through the check-in process, the security process, the gates and others, they are invariably going to be delays and the problem with delays is that they are cascading.
One delay leads to further delays and more. It is very difficult in our environment to fix a delay, which is why we know in Nigeria, the first flight is the most reliable and as you get further into the day, you have further delays.
However, some of the delays are sometimes caused by the airports themselves. We also have weather-related delays and anything that starts, always cascades to something worse, but we really can shape up and change our services.
To change the poor service delivery, Nwuba canvassed continuous service improvement from the airline operators and FAAN.
