For some days now, hundreds of Meview airline London and Dubai passengers have been stranded at the Lagos International airport.
The aggrieved passengers claimed they were abandoned by the airline without a word explaining their action.
They said, they had booked the flight far ahead of the Yuletide season to enable enjoy the Christmas and New year with their loved ones outside the country.
Reports also has it that, the situation here in Nigeria is not different at the Garwick airport were many passengers are also stranded.
Some of the passengers today however, became unruly disrupting the airline’s activities at the Lagos airport.
When contacted, Director Commercial and Business Development, Alhaji Ishaq Na’ Allah said the airline had begun the airlift of the stranded passengers.
Also in a statement, the Chief Operating Officer of the airline, Mr. Michael Ajigbotoso attributed the situation to a technical hitch in the aircraft scheduled to have taken the passengers out of London to Nigeria and back.
According to the statement,”Our flight VL 2101 out of London to Lagos on Friday December, 22 which has about 300 passengers on board returned back to Gatwick after departure as a precautionary measure taken by the Pilot- in – Command (PiC) in line with Aviation Standard and Recommended Practices”.
“This led to cancellation of the flight as the aircraft was declared AOG (Aircraft On Ground). The passengers were catered for, they were lodged in a hotel and those who decided to go back home were also taken care of, he added.
Explaining further, Mr. Ajigbotoso said, “athe aircraft was declared AOG, we had to wait for a maintenance report. The aircraft had to remain on ground until a certified expert carries out the necessary checks and certify that the aircraft is airworthy.
So the holiday compounded the problem.
In line with that confirmation, we decided to seek for a relief flight and tried as much as possible go get the approval from both the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Nigeria and the CAA of United Kingdom in Gatwick. We attest to their full cooperation and we appreciate them.
We announced to operate three flights feeling the concern of all our passengers. On Wednesday December 27, we positioned three aircraft after securing the approval of the CAA including Nigerian authority.
Disappointingly, due to the unruly behaviour of some Nigerian passengers, the Border Force had to intervene to support the operations for crowd control purposes.
These three aeroplanes would have evacuated 700 passengers which would have normalized the situation. But the passengers neither understood or knew the challenges ahead which resorted into having a delayed operation and crew rest and we ended up operating two flights out of three.
We use this medium to appeal to our Nigerian customers. As much as we appreciate their patronage and apologize for the experience they went through this Christmas, we seek for their understanding to know that their safety comes first before any other thing.
We feel their concern and the expectations of meeting their families for the Christmas Holiday.
The airline normal flights are expected to resume on Friday for London, Dubai and Jeddah.
