Dana Delays Flights over Welfare Talks with Pilots

Chinedu Eze

Domestic carrier, Dana Air grounded early morning flight to Abuja and Port Harcourt as pilots threatened to lay down tools.

Passengers left in the lurch became stranded when they could not get any information from the airline and they became restive, as Dana is not known to delay flights.

The threat by the pilots was however suppressed by the management of the airline are trying to iron out grievances with the former in a meeting that lasted for hours.

An informed source said the pilots grouse had to do with the late payment of compensation tokens as promised by the management when salaries were delayed as a result of aviation fuel scarcity.

“We don’t owe our staff salaries. We only promised our pilots that we will pay them compensation fees when their salaries were delayed arising from cancellations and delays of flights caused by the recent aviation fuel scarcity,” spokesman of the airline, Okwudili Kingsely explained.

“We made this promise to them because they were patient with us when we did not pay their salaries in time during the scarcity of aviation fuel,” he added.

He said the airline resumed flights in the afternoon, adding that the meeting was fruitful and deliberations were made to settle the issue, promising that such would not happen again.