Airlines Must Compensate Passengers for Flight Delays, Cancellations, Says Keyamo

•Declares list of erring firms will be published weekly

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, said yesterday that regulators in the aviation sector had been directed to compel airlines to compensate passengers for flight delays or cancellations as from January 2024.

The minister disclosed this yesterday when he appeared before the Joint National Assembly Committee on Aviation to defend his ministry’s budget for 2024 fiscal year.

Keyamo also assured passengers that a list of airlines that delayed or cancelled flights would be published in the media on a weekly basis as part of the compensation scheme .

He said: “I have called the customer’s satisfaction commission regarding the treatment of Nigerians. In fact, I have gone back to the committee , that is how much I am concerned.

“I have said it at the last address that I gave during our stakeholders meeting in Lagos and our retreat in Warri. I said on a weekly basis, please publish the list of airlines that do not fly as at when due, cancelled flights, delayed flights, how many hours it was delayed, were there compensation, actions they took as regulators against these airlines. We are starting that in January”.

The aviation minister proposed that a discount should be deducted from the flight tickets of airlines that delayed passengers as part of the compensation.

He said: “For every delay, there is a report, an actual report by the regulator , what did they do? Did they pay compensation?

“If they didn’t pay compensation we have said that the other way to get compensation if they can’t return cash is that once the passenger is buying the next ticket, they must be given a rebate.

“That passenger must be given a 50 per cent rebate or 40 per cent rebate because they must be a rebate”.

On the concession of airports, Keyamo said the best option to develop Nigerian airports is through concessions to investors.

He said: “Private partnership must come to the fore. It is not even negotiable, we don’t have the funds to do so.

“In concession , we will give the people what we want , not what they want. We have to decide what we want. It is the nature, the quality of the concession that all of us will agree on.

“We want to go ahead but I want everyone of us to sit down, look for the best hands, we should go to the end of this world to look for the best and the best thing for Nigeria and raise our offer to tier one, not tier two. Tier one investors should come to Nigeria and build our gateway for us”.