Honourable Minister, It is a season of open letters and you’ve got mail. Accept belated hearty congratulations on your appointment as minister for transport with powers to oversee the ministry for aviation too. The appointment is no doubt laudable and one that confers untold responsibility. Were we members of your party, the APC, we would have thrown a party for you; the opposition party may want to throw in more banana peels to defy your cat-with-nine-lives status. Thankfully, we are the Nigerian people- neither patronizing nor scheming; and since we have so much on our plates; we might as well get to the point of this letter without wasting more time.
Oga, when you were appointed minister for transport, we paid close attention to your plans. You pledged to complete all rail projects in the country-not surprising because in Rivers state, amidst cheers and jeers, you went on with the monorail project as your realization of your ‘vision for the future’. We are thankful that you are forward looking and wish you well but ehrmm…there is a problem sir: the aviation industry is crying for attention.
The problems range from simple to complex. We reduce it to the most basic: Passengers’ rights. Honourable, airline passengers have all (I mean ALL) their rights usurped and violated in this country. Flight delays and cancellations are normal. Indeed, when a flight takes off or lands as scheduled, we bow down to worship our God.
There must be some demons and iskokis militating against prompt flights. Thankfully, your predecessor, Princess Stella Oduah, set up a committee in 2012 to find and make recommendations on how flight cancellations and delays could be tackled. The problem was traced to independent marketers that supply aviation fuel. Government was then advised to increase the number of bowsers and upgrade the old ones at the airports while airlines were told to improve their credit worthiness with the marketers.
All of these are discussions that happened back door- away from the view and hearing of the Nigerian people. It has come to the fore because nothing has changed and we are wondering if the talks held at all. We suspect the committee report must be covered with dust somewhere in the archives; kindly request for that file to see if anything actionable can be done sir.
Along came your immediate predecessor Osita Chidoka, he was vehement about passengers compensation for delayed or cancelled flights by airline operators. An Aviation Passengers Service Portal and Helpline were designed to enhance efficiency and provide first-hand information on the operations of airlines and the activities of the aviation sector. I doubt if the airline operators shuddered because they knew that such decisions would be packed in hampers and delivered no where.
But there are laws and there are human-passengers as opposed to non-human, inanimate passengers. So much damage has been done that require damages. There is the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority regulation on passengers bill of rights as contained in the Civil Aviation Act of 2006.Under these laws, delay in airlines attract support during the period of delay or compensation. Passengers have right of care. When there is an overnight delay, passengers are entitled to a decent hotel accommodation and free feeding. In addition, transportation from the airport to the hotel is the airline’s responsibility. In Naija, no be so o! Our airports at night are a sleeping hub. People just stretch on whatever is available and wait for time to re-incarnate at morn.
It is sad. People leave the comfort of their homes and choose to fly; pay huge sums for a supposed most convenient mode of travel only to be treated shabbily. You sef check am sir,e no augur at all!
Rule 240or Rule 218 specifies that passengers may be entitled to reimbursements, rerouting, phone calls and refreshments where there are delays or cancellations. The rules are pretty on Nigerian papers; you need to see how fellow Nigerians are treated when they try to enforce these rules.
A lady at the service point who hasn’t the faintest idea of courtesy will just eye you, chew her gum and leave you ranting and raving to the winds. The male attendants nko? They will just shout you down and leave you wondering who to be mad at: the plane, attendant, airline or yourself for the bad choice made.
Although in 2012,the federal government made it mandatory for airlines to interline so passengers can fly with carriers not affected by the inefficiency ‘syndrome’, we have found that all airlines are plagued and crippled by same problems: Plane mishaps, old aircrafts, lack of qualified meteorologists, pilots or engineers, lack of maintenance of aircrafts and more are common denominators-the distinction is in degrees and frequency.
How about overbooked planes? Hmmm…where pesin wan start for dat one? Honourable, com see as plane passengers dey jam pack lyk crafish for Calabar market.On bad days, some of the planes leak the rains.
We feel desecrated sir. We cari our moni buy wahala. This tardiness is simply not sustainable. Indeed the issues are far too serious than we are probably putting it: Imagine an emergency patient booked on a flight that eventually gets delayed or cancelled. Think about business meetings, deals or official engagements that do not hold due to these inefficiencies. The mess is expensive and although we have no statistics to show for it, this arrangement or dis-arrangement may well have caused more loss of lives and money than we care to admit.
So what do we want? We are glad you asked. We want to be treated as humans at the airport. We want the full complement of passenger rights respected in our country. We have a right to fly safe airlines, the right to re-imbursement and compensation on delayed or cancelled flights.
And talking about compensation, passengers need to be awarded damages for loss of prompt medical care, businesses or opportunities that accrue from an airline’s ingenuity. Airlines should also be mandated to give written statements so the statements serve as proof to support claim for financial compensation or the coverage of travel insurance. Capable hands should be employed. Flying air caskets should be buried and not human lives. A regulation that mandates airlines to observe operational safety should not only be put in place but be seen to be enforced. We believe that funding of safety is critical and sanctions are a sine qua non for the restoration of sanity in the aviation industry and indeed other sectors.
There is however another matter that requires your innovation and attention: access to justice for airline passengers is an issue.
Traversing the ports leaves little time for redress. We therefore suggest that mobile courts be established in all airports to deal with concerns of air passengers promptly and effectively. We believe that just as the Federal Road Safety Commission has these mobile courts and they have helped to reduce the volume of road offences; the same would work for air travel as well.
Honourable Minister, some find it hard to believe that change can happen in the aviation industry especially given the back drop of failed attempts in the past.
Given, none of us has seen the corpus of attempts made but we have numerous examples of your triumphs to give us faith that what you set out to do, you get done regardless of whose ox is gored. We therefore implore you to inject some sanity in the sector for the good of us all. And lest I forget sir, some lovers have whispered to me that should nothing be done before St. Valentine’s day, so many Valentine arrangements will be ruined. This is therefore a matter of national and emotional emergency which we hope receives your usual prompt and concerted attention. Thank you in advance and we wish you well.
Sincerely,
Ballason
(For the Nigerian People)
