Passenger(s) Beware: If Max Air Cancels Your Flight, Kiss Your Refund Goodbye

By Eniola Olakunri

I usually set out early for the airport whenever I travel by air. It doesn’t matter which airport I am travelling from in Nigeria, or which country of the world I find myself in. As a rule of thumb, I must be at the airport at least 2 hours before take-off.

I do this for 2 reasons.

1) I really do not relish the idea of running late and having to cope with that near-audible, kinetic and irritating tug in the chest; denoting accelerating apprehension and obvious implication(s) of missing one’s flight.

2) Since I do not own a private jet yet, I cannot afford not to get to the airport on time. You can wait for many hours post set time before your flight finally takes off. It doesn’t matter. The industry is shaped such that you are the one wired to wait for your flight. The flight cannot wait for you….well, except you are a VVIP.

And so on November 30th, I did my usual stuff and arrived at the airport for my flight with more than 2 hours to spare. I did all my check-in processes, and passed in flying colours. All good, I sauntered into the waiting lounge and soon settled on a seat.

Then the wait started. Two hours and three hours went by, no word from the airline. Then, when it was apparent that the passengers were getting exasperated, we were all huddled into a space and told that some birds did kamikaze onto the Pilots’ windshield on landing, hence, the delay. I guess those birds were also tired of the hullabaloo in Nigeria and decided to end everything in a ‘blaze of glory’!

The official went on to say that there was no word from the head office on what steps to take next, and we were urged to wait for further developments.

The seconds morphed into minutes and the minutes, into hours. No sign of any official anymore.
By now, I was deflated, and decided to go downstairs to see what was happening at the check-in counter. I was shocked when I was told that the flight had been cancelled. But why weren’t the passengers informed?

The issue turned to what do we, passengers do? Our contract stipulated that we should be airlifted to Abuja. What do we do?

Eventually, we were asked to go fill a form at another point upstairs, which we did. I gave the following on the form given to me:

My name: I stated that.

Booking Reference: AFVRZH

Date of Travel: 30 November, 2023

Time of Travel: 9.25 am

Ticket Amount: Naira 80,000.00

Bank Details: I wrote that too.

And all the other mundane information they sought, I complied.
The official told us we should expect our refunds within 5 working days. I asked him what would be the fate of those without means of raising money for another flight, he studiously ignored me and continued writing whatever, on a piece of paper. Eventually, I bought a fresh ticket from another airline and travelled to Abuja the next day.

Fast forward to today January 10, 2024, the airline is yet to honour its word.

I decided to pay a visit to their kiosk of an office (another disgrace…these folks are not brand sensitive at all), situated on the passage of Murjantu House at 10, Zambezi Crescent, Maitama, Abuja, two and a half weeks ago, to find out why my account hadn’t been credited. The lone figure there, a personable lady (the best thing that ever happened to MAX AIR as far as I was concerned), was empathetic. She made me repeat all the processes I did in Lagos all over again. Still no refund.

I recall a gentleman that was billed to travel that day with his family and caught in the same MAX AIR cancellation-bind with me, spoke about how he had paid over 1.2 Million Naira as fares for himself and family, as they intended to attend a wedding in Abuja. He wore a mournful look throughout, and said he didn’t have anything near that kind of amount again, to procure fresh tickets. Other passengers were crying foul. But the ears of the staff, who wore bored and defiant looks, were deaf to those cries, probably because the art and act of disappointing passengers occur regularly, and therefore, was no big deal any more.

The subtle messages Nigerian Airlines are sending to customers is simple: it behoves on them (passengers) to make sure they have extra money to procure new tickets in case their intended flight did not happen.
They don’t care if the intending passenger doesn’t have the means of procuring a new ticket or funding transportation back to where he or she came from.

For most air travellers in Nigeria, they are, at the moment, one with the words of Judith Martin, an American Columnist, Author and Etiquette Coach (September 13, 1938 – Present): “Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress”.

Of course, MAX AIR is striding on and lately got the largest chunk of contracts handed out to specific airlinesto airlift passengers for the next Hajj in Saudi Arabia. The airline believes it can get away with anything and there’s nothing in place to discourage it from continuing such impunity.

It is instructive to note that not only MAX AIR, but a good number of airlines indulge in this underhand practices of treating customers with levity and even contempt.

And so, the beat goes on…!

*Eniola Olakunri, a public sector analyst and media consultant, writes from Abuja
Email: eniolaolakunri@gmail.com
Phone: 08033467676 (WhatsApp and SMS only)