Monday’s Dana Air flights disruption as a result of the ongoing renewal process for the airline’s certification by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), has elicited reactions from industry experts.
A number of stakeholders who spoke to our correspondent described the hitch as uncalled for, saying the agency has all it takes to smartly conduct the process without creating scene of disruption.
An expert, Dr. Kinsley Unongo in an interview said “Modern recertification process anywhere in the world should not lead to any form of flight delays or disruption as such official processes have regimented times that are scheduled in a way flights operations should not be affected”.
“It is rare to hear that flight schedules are disrupted because of agency certification as these things are done with strict observance of flight safety which includes avoidance of flight disruptions.
It would recalled that during the ill-fated disruption, some passengers of the airline heading to Abuja from Lagos on Monday, who were originally meant to fly to their destination on a Dana flight, could not do so, but were rather airlifted by a MaxAir aircraft.
The passengers reported that even though they were later checked in with Dana Air boarding passes, officials of the airlines used a pen to write MaxAir and the MaxAir flight failed to takeoff at the scheduled time.
Explaining the scenario, NCAA spokesperson, Jimoh Mohammed, said “Dana Air is actually concluding the renewal process of their certification. And since the old certification has expired, they have to complete and conclude the renewal process before they start flying. They are free to transfer their passengers to other airlines, there is no problem with that, especially when you interline with other carriers.
“Since they cannot fly without certification, they are free to interline. The fact remains that they cannot fly if they don’t complete the certification process. However, they are currently concluding this process and are at the last stages. So any moment from now everything will be okay. That is the situation right now.”
He was silent on why an airline would book flights without concluding its certification exercise.
