Nigeria’s Aviation Numbers Are Out And These Are The Airlines To Avoid If You Can’t Stand Delayed Flights

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) recently released its half-yearly report on both domestic and international flight operations and the country and there are some interesting finds.

The data shows that a staggering 16,429 domestic flights — that’s around 55 percent of the total — were delayed in the first six months of the year, with some airline operators being more culpable than others in this regard.

The NCAA report suggested that out of the 30,040 flights that were operated in Nigeria between January and June 2019, a total of 16,429 flights were delayed while another 241 flights were outrightly canceled.

Upon the further breakdown of the data, it can be seen that the Nigerian airspace was dominated by nine airlines considering only domestics flights. During those first six months, Aero Contractors, Air Peace, Arik Air, Max Air, Overland Airways, Medview Airline, Ibom Air, Dana Air, and Azman Air accounted for all the flights within Nigeria which totaled 30,043 flight operations, out of which 55 percent were delayed.

So, Which Airline Contributed The Most Number Of Delayed Flights?

• Out of the total delayed flights, Air Peace  recorded the highest cases with 6,359 (39 percent) delayed and ninety–one (91) canceled flights. 
• Arik Air operated 5,378 flights in the first half of 2019, with 2,306 (14 percent) of total flights delayed.  
• Aero Contractors recorded 2,181 delayed air flights out of 3,293, representing 13 percent of total flights delayed.  
• Max Air operated 2,652 flights, 1,538 were delayed, representing 9 percent of total flights. 
• Dana Air ranks fifth, recording 1,477 (11 percent) of total flights delayed in the industry.  
• Azman operated 2,711 flights, with 1,312 (8 percent) flights delayed. 
• Overland operated 1,248 flights, with 894 of the flights were delayed.  
• Medview ranks 8th with 219 total flights delayed, while Ibom Air recorded 1 percent of flights delayed.

What Does It Look Like On The International Scene?

For airlines that ply international routes from Nigeria, the NCAA recorded a total of 2,241 delayed flights and 55 canceled flights out of a total of 7,640 international flights recorded between January 2019 and June 2019. This means that some 29 percent of international flight operations in Nigeria were delayed during the period under review.

Concerns about the rising spate of delayed flights in both local and international flights have been rife for quite some time now and the lack of improvement in this regard has left many air travellers dismayed to the point of exasperation, so much so that many of the locals are convinced Nigeria’s local aviation sector is among the most unreliable in the developing world.

Airlines operating local routes are especially notorious for flight delays in Nigeria and even though some of this may be attributed to operational reasons, technical problems, scarcity of aviation fuel, and bad weather, the bulk of the poor service can be traced back to huge overheads and thin margins which have caused the airlines to cut costs so as to stay afloat. 

It’s bad enough that some of these airlines do not even have enough airplanes in their fleet to efficiently meet up with scheduled flights. This is all in a bid to keep operating costs on a low and most often, customer experience is the factor that suffers when companies cut budgets. Hence, no end in sight for delayed flights in Nigeria.

Featured Image Courtesy: TVC News