No airline will want to cancel or delay flights for sake of it – Onyema
The chairman of Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema has explained that no airline worth its salt will want to cancel or delay flights for the sake of it.
Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the recent League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents, LAAC conference in Lagos, Onyema noted that when an airline cancel flights, it incurs a lot of unaimaginable cost.
He pointed out that no airline would want to cancel flight for the fun of it, as delays and cancellations that happen all over the world is all about safety.
He explained that this time of the year is rainy season with is attendant thunderstorm.
According to him, “some people going to Abuja may sit in Lagos and call their friend because passengers do that, when you tell them weather is not good, they might call their relations in Abuja, they would tell them everywhere is clear but they don’t understand that enroute weather also matters”.
Onyema explained further that once you delay flight because of any reason, it affects the entire day.
In his words: “Every aircraft every day is planned to go to certain routes. Once anything happens on one of those planned routes, it would affect the others. It is like that all over the world.
The other day a flight was going to Calabar, getting to Calabar, it couldn’t land. If that flight had landed in Calabar, they would have gone from Calabar to Abuja, from Abuja, they would go back to Calabar and back to Lagos.
But the one that left Lagos to Calabar couldn’t land because of adverse weather. So they had to hover, after sometimes they turned back and landed in Port Harcourt. Over two hours delay occurred. It means that the passengers in Calabar waiting to go to Abuja would be delayed, those in Abuja waiting to go back to Calabar would be delayed, those of them in Calabar waiting to come to Lagos would be delayed. Any other route that was planned with that aircraft that day would experience delay. So these are things that cause delay. It is all over the world”.
Onyema stated further that: “I have been in America trying to land in Miami, there was a storm and they diverted the flight to South Carolina. I remained there for 10 hours before we got another flight because the pilot’s duty time expired”.
Wile sympathising and empathising with passengers on what they go through, Onyema said it is for their safety.
He observed that facilitation at the airport is another key factor in whole delay process, nothing that if there is a 6:30 a.m flight and over 1000 passengers are queuing up to pass through one scanner, there is bound to be delay.
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