@Safethetrade@Safethetrade ID and reputation import request submitted hours ago but nothing still. Remember that this is a precious time for most traders and actually getting these ID reviews & reputation imports done swiftly is important for us. Honestly it shouldn’t take this long.
AIR PEACE DISRUPTED FLIGHT:
Passengers were already boarded when a ground handler's conveyor belt hit the aircraft, causing damage to the engine cover.
Passengers had to be deboarded. The aircraft was scheduled to fly nine sectors. All passengers waiting for its operations are automatically disrupted, and the airline will face backlash, refund issues, compensation, etc, for a damage that was not its fault, and it would spend large sums of foreign currency to fix.
The other time, it was a bird strike that cost (by the airline's admission), over three million dollars to fix. It took an entire month for the airline manufacturer to send them the replacement for the "engine cowling dent."
Today's aircraft was one of the brand new E2's, and it was fully booked until January 15th, 2026. Now, all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation.
But airlines will not throw other service providers under the bus. They will simply announce "technical/operational reasons" and then they would bear, not just the anger of justifiably aggravated passengers, but the consequences per Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023.
Air Peace has suffered a lot of these technical issues through no fault of theirs. We need to start naming and shaming poorly trained ground handling personnel whose inefficiency costs the airlines great reputational, financial, and technical damage. We will now be looking to strengthen the regulations in a way that also heavily sanctions service providers for matters like the type in the images below.
Airlines should not be held responsible for situations like this, and passengers should be informed, most honestly, about the reasons for disruptions caused by these unfortunate scenarios.
I do hope that there is enough insurance to cover the cost of losses like this one.
In advance, I call for the understanding of passengers who were scheduled to fly this aircraft. I have asked about standby aircraft. The airline has two (which is commendable), but those two have been deployed to cover two other similar situations. In any case, even if they were available, their sitting capacities are less than the damaged E2.
These are some of the behind-the-scene situations that make airlines seem culpable. We must educate more, and ensure to unbundle the facts so that the industry does not continue to seem like a secret coven that swallows information behind layers of cover-ups.
To Air Peace, and indeed all domestic operators, I empathize with you in moments like this.
Thankfully, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ensured that access to forex is not longer as difficult as it used to be. I know that this does not mitigate the costs of repairs, neither does it make up for the lost time and possible profits, but I salute your resoluteness in keeping the business running.
May Nigeria succeed.
Glad to announce that Royal Air Maroc has also paid the NCAA sanction fee imposed on the airline for consumer protection-related infractions earlier this year.
Of the foreign airlines, RAM was hit with the heaviest sanction fees due to the incessant short-landed baggage issues, and their then lack of responsiveness to complaints.
While there is a remarkable improvement in their responses to passenger complaints, one notices that baggage issues continue to persist.
We have held a virtual meeting with the airline to try and understand their challenges. Despite this, the NCAA is thinking of heavier sanctions against RAM if this anomaly does not improve immediately.
Business dictates a change of strategy if the current policies are not working. To this end, the airline is advised to seek other ways to resolve baggage issues if their present ways are not helping their passengers. The goal is to sanitize our industry and give passengers a seamless travel experience.
The NCAA will continue to protect the rights of passengers and airlines.
The airline @qatarairways has carried on as though Nigerian passengers and the NCAA are not deserving of their respect, dignified treatment, and compliance with Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023. This will be brought to a stop immediately.
A member of this airline's cabin crew claimed that, while she was wheeling a passenger during boarding for a flight from Lagos to the US via Doha, a male passenger who was travelling with his wife had touched her butt.
She did not report this incident in Lagos. On arrival in Doha, she made an allegation against this passenger, leading to his arrest and detention for about eighteen hours. During the period, his wife suffered mental, physical, and psychological trauma without any form of care. She wondered how her husband could have committed such a despicable infraction given that she was with him throughout the boarding process.
The authorities in Doha made the man pay a hefty fine and forced him to sign a document written ONLY in Arabic! Desperate for freedom to proceed on his journey to the US, the passenger signed a document which contents he did not understand.
Despite this, the airline refused to fly him to his final destination. He had to buy tickets on another airline and proceed at great financial and reputational cost.
Upon invitation by the NCAA, the airline's country manager, who has a penchant for evading meetings with the NCAA, only sent his subordinates to attend. However, the NCAA made a determination on that matter along with others. As has become typical of @qatarairways, they failed to comply with all determinations made from that meeting. They have also failed to treat subsequent complaints from other passengers escalated to them by the CAA, including a total silence upon receipt of a letter of investigation (LOI) sent to them by the NCAA.
This behaviour stops now.
I understand that some countries do not have advanced aviation consumer protection regulations like Nigeria does. In certain cases, some countries don't even have any. This creates a situation where airlines operating out of those countries (mostly national carriers) act with disdain towards consumer protection enforcement in Nigeria.
This is not a situation that we would accept here. It is against the law for ANY Airlines not to respond to the NCAA. It is against the law to provide false information to the NCAA. It is against the law to fail to comply with the provisions of Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023.
When BASAs are signed, they must be respected by both parties. Every airline is expected to, upon approval to operate in Nigeria, understand and comply with consumer protection regulations.
To continue to treat our laws with contempt while respecting regulations across Europe and elsewhere is not ideal and must be bought to a complete and final stop.
This department protects the airlines as much as it protects passengers. The DGCA, Captain Chris Najomo, has never minced words about his position on consumer protection issues, and we will apply appropriate and stiff penalties against the airlines that, in perpetuity, fail to comply.
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In the same vein, Royal Air Maroc and Saudi Air have also been properly advised about certain infractions and, failing to comply with the determinations of the CAA, will be sanctioned heavily.
VIOLENCE AGAINST AIRLINE GROUND STAFF, CABIN CREW.
Today, I led a team of NCAA Consumer Protection and Public Relations officers to educate passengers about their dangers of verbal/physical assault in the terminals and aboard aircraft.
This is to enable us to arrest the rising tide of violence in the industry.
This drive, which will be nationwide, teaches that CABIN CREW ARE NOT THE ENEMY. They don't make the rules. They ensure your safety and assist your journey.
Be you passenger, cabin crew, or ground staff, we are all partners in this ecosystem, and we must not hurt one another.