The Vice Chancellor of
the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Ndowa Laale, has called on the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) to wade into the continuous and unwarranted delays in flight operations by operators of airlines in Nigeria.
He said that this has become necessary in view of the huge trauma and losses that passengers and customers had suffered because of this delay culture.
Laale who made this known in a chat with journalists at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, Tuesday explained that there are so many serious challenges to be tackled in the Nigerian aviation industry.
“When you have all these delays and flight cancellations rescheduling and you are supposed to be changing plance, for example, if I want to get on to a connecting flight in Lagos, and they keep you here in Port Harcourt waiting and you miss your flight at the other end; who then pays for it?
“Even the airlines in this kind of situation seem not to be bothered about that and I think the consumers protection council needs to put some systems in place where the airlines will pay for the delays we suffer as passengers.
“These delays keep messing us around particularly when you have appointments to keep at the other end”, he stated.
On the promise and claim’s made by some airlines that they usually compensate passengers on the issues of delays, the Uniport boss said that no airline had ever compensated him for delays and losses so incurred from it.
He said “Cake and a bottle of water cannot compensate for the losses one incurred due to flight delays, and unless the CPC does something serious on this, Nigerians will continue to suffer”.
According to him, the CPC must put some measures in place to mount pressure on the airlines, otherwise, things will continue to go the way it has been,
Laale, however, urged the present administration at the centre to take seriously the issue of infrastructure provision at airport.

Corlins Walter Amadi