Dark and tall with a beard trimmed to perfection, he was an incredible advertisement for the dark-blue Air Force uniform.

Group Captain Nnaemeka Badaru had just retired from the force and itching to leave the Sam Ethnan Air Force Base in Oshodi, Lagos State, for his palatial house in Abuja, where his wife, Alhaja Zainab, alongside friends, had prepared a feast to celebrate his homecoming.

With a 1pm outbound flight for LOS to ABV booked on an indigenous airline, Efizzy (showing off without substance), Badaru, while speaking over the phone with his wife in his about-to-be vacated cubicle-like quarter, received a message from Efizzy that his flight had been delayed for four hours. Two hours to the rescheduled time, he got another message that the flight was cancelled.

Wearing a grim look and his moustache almost poking his eyeballs, he yelled: Wetin be this one like this? Food wasted. Homecoming disrupted. Unbelievable!

Enter Jimmy Badaru: a student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The Group Captains only son anticipated the celebration that would greet his fathers homecoming and vowed not to miss it even though he was in Enugu.

One week before the D-day, Jimmy booked a 9am flight for ENU to ABV, but four hours before schedule, he received a message from the airline saying: Dear esteemed passenger, We are truly sorry that your flight with us from Enugu to Abuja for today August 25, 2024, was cancelled due to operational reason¦

Enraged but determined, he decided to travel by road to beat his father to the Federal Capital Territory. With no immediate refund from the airline and limited funds, he joined a 7am bus leaving for his destination. On the Enugu to Makurdi road, his vehicle was attacked by kidnappers. Words reached home and the Badarus were thrown into confusion.

Disruptions

Although fictional, the Badaru familys story is a concrete example of how flight disruptions continue to distort travel plans in Nigeria, leading passengers to incur additional expenses for accommodation and transportation.

Currently, the rate of flight delays and cancellations has assumed an alarming dimension, emerging as one of the biggest challenges affecting domestic travellers.

Specifically, indigenous airlines have gained notoriety for this practice that sometimes leaves passengers with the worst alternative of travelling by road.

Saturday Vanguard findings showed that no Nigerian airline is immune to the practice that has left every intending traveller to envisage such development.

The situation, whichh has largely affected socio-economic activities across the country is becoming alarming, thereby compounding the pains of air travellers, who are currently faced with exorbitant airfares.

Statistics

Past data from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, and recent complaints from Nigerians paint a concerning picture of the state of air travel in the country.

The air transport regulator had said between January and December 2022, domestic airlines reported 47,144 delayed flights, with some of the top carriers leading in these disruptions.

In February 2024, the NCAA also revealed that 53 per cent of all flights operated in Nigeria in 2023 were delayed, while 1 per cent experienced cancellation.

Reasons

Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, averred that most of the delays and cancellations result from factors beyond their control.

Vice-president of AON, Dr Allen Onyema, had identified passenger behaviour as one of the major causes of flight delays in Nigeria, arguing that travellers have refused to accept the culture of rescheduling when flights are cancelled.

Let me tell you why delays and cancellations will persist in this country. Apart from safety, security, weather and other issues, it is unruly passenger behaviour. The misunderstanding of how airlines scheduled operations are supposed to be run is a major cause of flight delays, he explained.

Economic implications

Dismissing AONs notion, Executive Director of General Sales and Solution, GSSM, an aviation consultancy firm, Mr Babatunde Adeniji, told Saturday Vanguard that if an earlier disruption triggered the misbehaviour, passengers cant be held responsible.

Adeniji claimed that any approach of blaming passengers is rarely helpful, urging airlines and staff to have a safe operating environment.

Adeniji, whose consultancy firm in 2023 pegged the loss that Nigeria incurs annually due to flight disruptions at over N24 billion, said flight disruptions are a measure of economic inefficiencies.

He said: It is automatically an increase in production and other business costs. It denies us the opportunity to deploy that value in cash or kind to other productive ends. At GSSM, we did a study in 2023 and found, according to NCAA 2022 reports, that only 41 per cent of operated domestic flights in Nigeria departed or arrived within 15 minutes on time. AON claimed that 80 per cent of those delays were attributable to issues beyond their control like weather, air traffic flow management, ATFM, airport, and government among others.

Standardised flight delay reporting format

As a global industry, there is a standardised flight delay reporting format by the International Air Transport Association, IATA, using codes that attribute cause and responsibility for the delays. This system helps to define and allocate penalties transparently when delays arise.

We reviewed a recent survey by AirHelp on the on-time performance of flights operating from May 2023 to April 2024 covering 239 airports in 69 countries. The reports show that the two South African airports are among the top 20 on-time airports in the world (all the 20 airports score over 80 per cent on time). Cape Town airport ranked as number two. We do not have the latest local data from the NCAA to do a more current comparison, but clearly, we are not doing well enough.

Transparency

Director of Zenith Consult and Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, who also assessed the situation, said domestic airlines currently suffering from reduced capacity have a problem adjusting their website and their schedule to reflect their fleet.

Ohunayo pointed out that because the airlines dont want to lose some of their clients by being transparent, concurrent delays and cancellations are experienced.

When the capacity that is being operated is no more, the first thing that should be done is to go down on the number of frequencies and number of routings. In Nigeria, however, they have a problem adjusting the website and schedule to reflect their fleet. Because they dont want to lose some of their clients in the process, you see these concurrent delays and cancellations, he said.

He blamed passengers for not taking advantage of the laws that address flight disruption, saying rather than complain on social media, passengers should follow the legal procedures.

If you ask me, the laws are there, the laws for delays, laws for cancellations are there and I think the passengers are the ones that are supposed to make use of those laws.

They are the ones that are supposed to make reports. Rather than complain on social media, passengers need to calm down and follow the routine, especially the procedure of first writing to the airline. If you dont get a response, then it can now be used as a template to push your case to the regulator. They should not forget that the regulator is always there to intervene provided the procedures are followed, he added.

Way forward

Ohunayo, however, expressed optimism that with the new portal from the Consumer Protection Department of the NCAA set for launch on September 19, 2024, passengers can now monitor airlines performance records.

He said: Well, I think the airlines dont have a choice now. With the new portal from the consumer protection department of the NCAA, we have records of complaints.

Passengers will be able to follow the airlines with most cancellations and delays. You will just check your phone and everything will be there for you to see. On the portal, you can see the airline that delays more and those you can rely on. I think that is going to let the airlines sit up.

Punctuality reports

Adeniji, on his part, said: For the best solutions to the management of these disruptions, we align with IATA that airlines are part of an interdependent aviation system which has to work like clockwork to get passengers to their destinations safely and on time.

Any approach to addressing delays should involve everyone in the picture “ airlines, airports, air traffic management, governments and passengers themselves “ for us all to improve on-time performance and when delays do happen, ensure that passengers are properly cared for.

In his first few weeks in office the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, directed that the NCAA must publish punctuality reports showing delays, their causes and responsible parties. Instead, the previous bi-annual summary report was stopped.

We do not know if this has resumed but last time we checked, there hasnt been any new report published on their website since the acting Director General, Chris Najomo, came into office.

If this is correct (from what we have seen up until August 28, 2024) the first responsibility of the NCAA is to implement timely, transparent and reconciled reporting. After all, it is what gets measured that gets improved.

Quality of previous report

The second thing is an improvement on the quality of the previous report as it lacked the rigour and details of comparative reports because it failed to show correlations or causes for the delays.

It was also silent on contributory factors or agencies for controllable delays and, sadly, it limited the reports usefulness as a tool for conducting root cause analysis or drive improvement.

The quality of this very important report needs to improve this year and should include commissioned studies on the causes and costs of delays to airlines, passengers, lost demand and indirect economic costs.

The NCAA also needs to hold all public and private providers accountable and should implement a service level agreement, SLA, regime enforceable by all parties. As the apex regulator, the NCAA must lead the solutions since partnership and planning “ among airports, airlines, air navigation service providers, ANSPs, and governments “ is the best way to take care of passengers when there are delays and reduce delays itself. (Saturday Vanguard)