Angst Over Flight Delays

Air travellers have come hard on domestic airlines over flight delays and have taken on the social media to register their anger. Chinedu Eze looks at factors responsible for the delays, airlines’ shortcomings and key ways the hostility between airlines and travellers could be minimised.

The social media beamed on Nigerian airlines was literally agog last week, as air travellers and other Nigerians angrily condemned flight delays by domestic airlines. One of the angry traveller who is a lawyer, threatened court action against Nigeria’s biggest carrier, Air Peace and he became a rallying point on what was dubbed the excesses of Nigerian airlines.
Although flight delays and cancellation are a global phenomenon associated to air travel, it has been a butt of anger in Nigeria due to many factors, including how it is managed by the airlines, the administrative style of air travel in the country and passengers perception and understanding.
THISDAY investigations revealed that although airlines bear the brunt of travellers’ anger, there are myriads of factors that contribute to fight delays in Nigeria.

Weather
In a statement during the week, the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMET) said: “The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has alerted the public on a possible deterioration of horizontal visibility in the northern part of the country. Fresh dust has been raised over the source in Chad Republic and is expected to be transported into the country. The dust is expected to deteriorate horizontal visibility values over the northern parts of the country from the time of the issuance of the forecast to the next 24 hours.

“The statement revealed that the thick dust haze with horizontal visibility values of less than 1000 meters are expected over the northern parts of the country, especially over, Borno, Yobe, Kano, Gombe, Bauchi, Katsina, Zamfara, and Sokoto.
“NiMet therefore cautioned that Flight operations may be disrupted and airline operators are advised to pick up their flight folders at all aerodromes in the country and adhere to regulations.”
Since November last year, the harmattan haze has been disrupting flight operations and led to flight delays and sometimes cancellation. Harmattan haze disrupts flights that most times during the December high season flights might not operate during the afternoon.

Infrastructure
One of the major culprits of flight delays is inadequate capacity at the airports. THISDAY learnt that it is a major set back in on-time operation of airlines, especially in Lagos and the Abuja airports. For example, during the last Christmas season, the carousel in many airports broke down. In Lagos it happened at the both the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) or the Terminal 1 of the domestic airport and also at the major domestic terminal operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), MMA2. According to airline officials, the braking down of the conveyor belt caused a lot of delays that passengers had to wait for long to collect their luggage. It also delayed flight operations because airlines had to find alternative ways to move the bags to where they could be taken to the foot of the aircraft, which was cumbersome and time consuming.

THISDAY investigation revealed that since it became indicative that more people travel by air the terminal space has become inadequate for travellers. Even at low season in January the GAT terminal was so crowded when THISDAY visited during early morning flights. The number of counters at the Air Peace part of the terminal was adequate that passengers travelling to some destinations have to be called out and attended to away from the counter. The terminal was literally chocking. The poor passenger facilitating process makes delays inevitable. By the time passengers go through the two x-ray machines and arrive at the departures, breathless, at least over 30 minutes have been wasted for that flight.

Also at the airside the ramp is small for the number of aircraft that park there. In fact, pilots have to be careful in order not to clip the wing of their aircraft. Last week passengers had fully boarded on Air Peace flight and the aircraft was ready to depart but it could not be pulled back to taxi to the runway because it was blocked by Arik Air aircraft that was boarding passengers. When contacted, the pilot of the flight said he had to compete boarding of the passengers before it would move the aircraft for the Air Peace aircraft to be pulled back. The flight waited for almost another 30 minutes.
THISDAY investigation also revealed that Air Traffic Controllers allow a flight that has taken off about five minutes before they would give start up to another. In other words, an aircraft could be waiting at the holding point of the runway for five minutes for the aircraft that has taken off to reach a cruise level. Most often, especially at the Lagos airport, after it has taken off, the aircraft would wait for another five minutes or more for the one coming into Lagos to land. So on the average, an aircraft on the holding point can wait for 15 to 20 minutes before taking off. These delays build up on the aircraft and would affect on the services it would operate for that day.

VIP Movement
One other major factors responsible for delay is VIP movement. Top official of one of the airlines told THISDAY that the problem with VIP movement is that “you don’t know when it will end. If you are on ground you will wait and wait because for security reasons you wont be told when the President or the Vice President will take off or land. If you are in the air you burn fuel hovering and face the worry of anxious passengers. Hovering around in the airspace sends panic to Nigerian passengers. The wait can last for 30 minutes, one hour; so it is a major cause of delay.

Airlines
While all the blame for delays are heaped on the airlines by ignorant passengers, there are specific delays that are caused by airlines. The major one is sudden aircraft malfunctioning, which means that all the flights that will be operated by that aircraft may be jeopardised. That causes huge delay. When there is bird strike, which most often renders the aircraft to AOG (aircraft on ground), the ability for the airline to deploy another aircraft to airlift the passengers. Most often this causes long delays. Some airlines try to join two flights together. When the load factor on the first flight is low they join it to the second flight. Many industry observers said this is insensitivity and lack of regard for passengers. Sometimes some airlines with poor administrative and logistics system begin to source for aviation fuel at short notice before their flights. This causes delay and keeps the passengers stranded.

Other Factors
Also, informed source told THISDAY that NIMET may direct a flight primed to fly to a particular airport to hold on because the visibility at the airport is below the weather minima. Airlines said that they have found out that sometimes the visibility is higher than the figures given by NIMET, thus causing unnecessary delay for the airlines.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Sam Adurogboye, told THISDAY that the authority allows pilots to use their discretion after they have been informed about the weather situation. He said that Air Traffic Controllers ought to advice the pilots but they don’t usually insist.
“Pilot in command can say, I have the equipment that can go through the weather and he may choose to go but would be held responsible if anything happens,” the NCAA spokesman said.
He said that there is standard operating procedure (SOP), which everyone must adhere to. Adurogboye admitted that presidential movement, inadequate infrastructure, merging two or more flights, operating flights disregarding schedules cause flight delays.
He also explained that why flights have to wait for the ones that have taken off to gain cruise height is a provision for air return. In case the aircraft suffers malfunction while taking off it could quickly return to base.
Adurogboye frowned at the current situation whereby most airlines want to operate from Lagos and about six airlines would be flying to Abuja at the same time, noting that it is a major reason for flight delay. He noted that the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) charges airlines that want to locate their operational base outside Lagos less.
“Airlines don’t effectively communicate to their passengers. This is very important and the more aircraft you have the more you will face the challenge of flight delays, but airlines should carry passengers along at every point,” he said.
However, senior official of one of the airlines told THISDAY that inadequate and poor infrastructure is responsible for delays, recalling that last Christmas season there was total breakdown of facilities at some airports, which caused over one and hour delay per flight at some point.
He pointed out that weather, documentation, waiting for NCAA approval or to certify aircraft after checks, tower request for documentation can keep airlines’ aircraft on the ground while passengers are waiting.
“There are also technical issues, which airlines don’t want to talk about because our passengers are not enlightened to understand it for what it is. If you tell them aircraft has engine problem they will jump out of their seats. But if it is a foreign airline they will sit back with confidence. So we don’t announce technical issues to passengers because of their level of understanding,” he said.
He also pointed out that merging of flights causes delay.
“Also when flights are delayed and you serve refreshment. You may serve 80 passengers out of 130 passengers because the rest are not there at that point in time. But it will be those ones who are not there that will come back and accuse you of not apologizing for the delay and also not attending to your passengers. That is the dilemma we are in,” he said.

Poor Communication by Airlines
But critics of Nigerian airlines have noted that airlines do not communicate enough to passengers. They believe that if airlines tell passengers the cause of the delays they will be able to understand that some of the flight delays are caused by extraneous factors beyond the airlines. They noted that the phrase operational reasons, which is used as blanket explanation to flight delays has become a source of annoyance to passengers; that when public announcer says it at the airport or inside the aircraft “some passengers will tell themselves, this airlines have started their game.”
Industry observers also say that there is distrust between Nigerian airlines and air travellers and research has shown that Nigerian travellers tend to trust foreign airlines more than Nigerian carriers; although there may be many other factors to this beyond performance and flight disruptions, but there has been growing animosity passengers have against Nigerian carriers. Industry pundits attribute this to poor communication and lack of “communicating with candour.”
The disconnection is also exacerbated when airlines don’t reach out to the passengers in time when there is delay, attend to them effectively when they are already waiting for flights at the airport and also provide them refreshments as enunciated in the customer protection rights of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulation.
The Managing Director, Flight and Logistics Solutions, Amos Akpan put it succinctly, “The customer did not pay the airline to teach him about causes of flight delays and cancellations. The customer paid the airline to carry him from point A to B. What and how the airline does that is the responsibility of the airline and the regulatory agencies. It is therefore wrong for airline management to expect the passenger to understand that an aircraft is faulty or weather is bad so his business and trip should suffer. The solution is to make your passenger feel you have his interest protected in the contract. This you do when he doesn’t see you demonstrate that you are callous in service delivery as if you are doing him a favour.”