Ibom Air Apologises over ‘Obidient’ Passenger Disruption of Flight Take-off
Chinedu Eze
The management of Ibom Air has apologised to the airline’s passengers on an Abuja-Lagos flight on Friday evening, March 31, 2023, over the disruptive and unruly attitude of a passenger onboard, which caused one-hour delay of the flight.
There were viral reports and videos on the social media of a scene caused by the unnamed passenger referred to as ‘Obidient’ onboard the Ibom Air plane where he was addressing fellow passengers on the just-concluded February 25 presidential election outcome.
The ‘Obidients’ refers to members of a political movement, which was in support of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in the just-concluded 2023 general election.
However, a statement signed by Aniekan Essienette, Group Manager, Marketing and Communication, Ibom Air, yesterday, explained that the Airline quickly waded into the situation and caused the passenger to be forcefully disembarked as a last resort.
“We wish to inform the public about an incident on our 6 pm flight from Abuja to Lagos on Friday, 31 March 2023.
“A passenger stood up and began addressing other passengers in a manner considered inappropriate and unruly, as he was making other passengers nervous.
“Our crew deemed his continuous unruly behavior unsafe and called on airport security to help with the situation. Upon his refusal to stop or disembark peacefully, the security operatives were left with no choice but to forcefully disembark the passenger as a last option.
“We are aware that several videos and reports of this incident are circulating on social media and wish to provide the right perspective.
“Ibom Air wishes to assure our passengers that we maintain very high safety and service standards and will never compromise the safety and security of our passengers.
“We apologise to the affected passengers for the time it took to disembark this passenger, which caused an otherwise on-time departure to be delayed by an hour,” Essienette stated.
