Passengers Stranded as Nigerian Domestic Airline Market Suffers Drastic Shortage

Scores of passengers were disappointed across the country following worsening shortage of aircraft in the domestic airline market in the country.

As available flights for passengers is being limited, air commuters find it difficult to move around.

The situation deteriorated on Tuesday as many passengers could not secure flights to their destinations.

The busiest routes, Lagos-Abuja and Abuja-Lagos, were hugely impacted as many passengers could not secure seats as of 4 pm on Tuesday.

It was observed that on the airlines, there were indications that none of them had seats on any of their Lagos-Abuja flights.

For instance, a check on Max Air flight slated for 6 pm indicated that the seats were fully booked. However, it was later gathered that the flight did not operate.

Also, Air Peace flights for 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm on Tuesday showed that they were fully booked or did not operate as they indicated no seat on their website.

Some airline operators have attributed the challenge to capacity constraints being faced by the airlines.

One of them disclosed that there is a shortage of capacity and many people are traveling.

Another operator revealed that most of the airlines have capacity issues and they have also reduced their operations, cutting down drastically to avoid issues.

Aviation analyst, Mr Olumide Ohunayo said the flights that were said to have been sold out were either cancelled or they are not going to operate.

“So it shows the effect of the new consumer protection software and online reporting process which is now very open,” he added.

He stressed that airlines are being careful not to leave schedules open when they know that they are not going to operate it.

Ohunayo noted that ahead of the yuletide, airfares might increase due to the existing capacity constraint.