The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has directed Air Peace to compensate passengers affected by a delayed Lagos-Enugu flight.
The directive followed a preliminary investigation into the disruption, which left passengers scheduled to travel on Monday waiting for several hours before they were informed that the flight had been moved to 4:50pm.
The NCAA Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Michael Achimugu, said the authority established that the notification sent to affected passengers was issued in error.
This follows an X post by lawyer and human rights activist Inibehe Effiong who complained about the delay, saying it threatened to prevent him from attending a scheduled court hearing in Enugu.
Effiong said he arrived at Terminal One of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos at about 5:50am for the scheduled 6:45am flight, having completed his check-in the previous night.
According to him, passengers were initially kept waiting before being informed that the flight would not depart until later in the day.
He also questioned why the airline sent a reminder at about 2:01am asking passengers to come for the flight when, according to him, the airline was already aware that it would not operate as originally scheduled.
Effiong said the disruption caused him financial losses and put his court appearance in jeopardy. He also criticised the aviation authorities, alleging that they had failed to adequately address repeated flight delays by the airline.
The NCAA responded by saying that disruptions could not be addressed before they occurred, but assured him that the authority would investigate the circumstances surrounding the flight.
Achimugu initially said the disruption appeared to have been linked to a knock-on effect from problems experienced by the airline the previous night.
He also recalled that the NCAA had recently advised Air Peace to maintain a buffer aircraft to minimise the effect of major operational disruptions.
Following the investigation, however, Achimugu said the airline should have properly informed passengers scheduled to travel on the Lagos-Enugu flight that their journey had been rescheduled.
He said the airline’s station and duty managers confirmed that the message received by Effiong and other passengers was the one sent by the airline, and that it was issued mistakenly.
“The Station Manager and Duty Manager have confirmed that the messages sent out was the one you received, and that it was done in error,” Achimugu said.
The NCAA spokesman added that the airline claimed to have moved affected passengers to a hotel and was providing care pending their eventual departure, although the authority was still verifying the claim.
Achimugu said proper and timely communication was an essential part of passenger protection and that the wrong notification could not be treated as a force majeure event.
He said Air Peace could avoid sanctions if it fulfilled its obligations to the affected passengers, including compensation and duty of care.
However, he warned that stronger regulatory action could follow if the airline failed to meet those obligations.