Nigerian Passengers Protest Alleged Maltreatment by Qatar Airways

Chinedu Eze

Nigerian passengers have called for the intervention of the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo in an alleged maltreated meted to them by the Middle East carrier, Qatar Airways.

 The passengers, who were 12 in number, narrated how they boarded Qatar Airways flight from London to Port Harcourt en-route Doha on July 13, 2024, but on arrival to Nigeria, they were routed to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, instead of Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa.

The passengers narrated that the flight landed in Lagos at about 9:00 a.m but the airline management in Lagos told them that instead of taking them to Port Harcourt with Qatar Airways flight, they would now use domestic airline to the Rivers state capital and the schedule for the flight was 18:30 (6:30 pm, Nigerian time).

They alleged that the airline breached the agreement to fly them directly to Port Harcourt, which is contrary to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Act, 2022 and that they were dumped at the Lagos airport, where they waited for nine hours before the local fight that would take them to Port Harcourt took off.

 They explained that during that period, they waited and  they were not attended to by Qatar Airways management. They  added that were not even served water or refreshment and they were stranded at the airport for that number of hours.

 One of the passengers, Chief Ernest Elochukwu, recounted the incident and called for the aviation authorities in Nigeria to wade in.

“We are 12 passengers that were involved in this incident. And as per the report we made to the NCAA, the itinerary on our tickets was Port Harcourt-Doha-London. And in return it is London-Doha-Port Harcourt. However, we were surprised that on getting to Doha on our return we were now routed to Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.

“Later, the Qatar Airways staff told us that they were going to take us to the local terminal (MMA2) where we have to wait for the flight that was scheduled to take off around 18.30 hours. Meaning that we are expected to be at Lagos airport for about nine hours plus, because we are not even sure when they are going to take off. So, we now asked them in line with the Convention elsewhere that when flights are delayed passengers are put to where they would see some convenience like a hotel or lounge for that long wait. But they declined and told us that they didn’t get approval from Qartar Airways over there at Doha. They simply declined to provide us a resting place.

“But in other countries when they have six hours and anything beyond two, three, or six hours delay they make arrangements for accommodation and somewhere to relax while they sort out all the effects of the extended impact of such delays, and coming down here in Nigeria and they just don’t want to do anything. It is very unfair to the customer,” Ude lamented.

 Another passenger, Mr. Winston Anyaoku, said: “Yes, overseas, they don’t operate the same way. They do things differently overseas, but I think we are being looked down on. So, in Nigeria, they operate differently. But the lady representing them said she would want to contact Doha first and she’s been trying to make that contact, if she was really sincere, but nothing came out of it so she will continue to say she has and we’ve been here since 9 o’clock, it is 1pm now.

“You would imagine we have been waiting from 9 o’clock in the morning and we are to wait till 6.30 p.m. in the evening to board a flight in an airport, wearing the same old clothes we wore from London. This is not acceptable and we should find a way to make certain things work better in this country. Nigeria should not suffer in every form of it.”

 He blamed the authorities in Nigeria, especially the NCAA, saying the agency  was supposed to handle matters like this under its Consumer Protection Directorate, insisting that this kind of treatment does not happen in other countries.

“Of course, these things don’t happen in other countries. Having a good standard operating procedure this shouldn’t be happening, the authorities should put things in place and they should have a standard that every operator and every carrier should operate with; so that our people don’t continue to suffer,” he said.

But reacting to the incident, the Director of Communications and Consumer Protection, NCAA, Mr. Michael Achimugu, told THISDAY that the case may not have come to his desk yet, but noted that the agency’s experience so far has indicated that Nigerian passengers are sometimes the cause of their problem but they would blame the airlines.

 He said most passengers do not study the travel regulation and even the conditions of carriage by the airlines, so they are not able to delineate between their own obligations and that of the airlines.

 Achimugu cited example with a Nigerian female passenger who did a video recently and accused Turkish Airlines of denying her accommodation after a layover of more than 12 hours; insisting that she ought to have been given accommodation by the airline.

But Achimugu observed that for her to get accommodation she ought to have obtained consular visa that would enable her to leave the airport and access the accommodation. He disclosed that Turkey stopped offering Nigerians visa on arrival about two years ago. So, it was the lady’s fault.

He narrated similar experience with domestic airlines; “Sometimes the passengers actions are borne out of ignorance. There was a passenger on domestic flight who complained that he was not allowed by the airline to board his flight, but when we investigated, we found out that the man arrived the airport late for the flight. When we reminded him that he ought to have arrived the airport two hours before the flight, he retorted, ‘So, I will leave every other thing I am doing to come to the airport and stay for two hours?’”