23rd March, 2021
By Abankula
Nigeria’s leading airliner, Air Peace was the target of derision by domestic passengers on Monday night over its habitually delayed flights.
A Twitter user had dragged the airline online warning travellers not to ever book its 7.30pm flight, as it ends up leaving four hours later.
Funmi Oyatogun, who started it wrote: ‘Please, do not book the Air Peace Abj-Lag 11:30pm flight, falsely advertised as 7:30pm. Every night, they pretend the flight has been moved to 8:30pm then 9:50pm. Then every night, it leaves at 11:30pm.
“And there’s curfew in Lagos! Don’t say I didn’t tell you”.
The tweet has over 3000 likes and close to 4,000 retweets, meaning the experience was common among passengers.
“My girl @Travelwithgaz ended up at the police station because the police said she shouldn’t have been on the road. Meanwhile, she was heading home from the airport”, Oyatogun continued her harrowing experience.
“In me and @kingsobas and @AjibadeAdedotun’s case, we were lucky that the curfew police accepted boarding passes”, she added.
Tony Ajiri, who had a similar experience wrote: @flyairpeace is something else now. I booked a return flight Lagos-Abuja on 9th March only to receive a text on 2nd that my flight originally booked for 3.30pm wld depart Lagos by 7.30pm. We ended up leaving Lagos by 9.30pm. If you miss the early morning flights, sorry ooo”.
Another user of the airline Muyiwa Falaye shared another experience: “Once, my 10am Abuja flight was ‘moved’ to 8.30pm. I got the email just as I was preparing to leave home for the airport. I insisted on going to the airport as planned. Could you believe the 10am flight still went ahead and I insisted on a boarding pass….I got it!”.
As the Air Peace was being bashed, some other Twitter users recommended Ibom Air as alternative.
They said the airline keeps to time, even at times leaving 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
“For last year ratings, IBOM AIR stood out ahead of others in the areas of on time departures, flight delays and cancellations. They were miles ahead of others in every parameter of performance, so many aren’t aware of this. Excellence will always sell itself. Always fly smart!”, wrote Yusuf Adebanjo.
AJ Etim concurred: Ibom Air takes off 10 mins before the actual departure time. Twice last year, I almost missed my flight, even when I assumed I was early, & at least they still give takeaway packs. The other airlines are seriously using the covid-19 as an excuse to only serve water onboard”.
Air Peace, which read about its image being battered in the Twitter thread apologised to all the complainants.
“Our sincere apologies Funmi. Please note that we will never intentionally disrupt our flights to inconvenience you or any of our customers. This is due to our uncompromising stance on safety as we strive to give all our customers the best flight experience. We are truly sorry.”, Air Peace wrote.