No fewer than 8,686 of air travelers’ luggage in Nigeria were either missing or delayed on arrival in the third quarter of 2017.
Within the same period, there were 44 pilfering or other complaints concerning passengers’ luggage at all the nation’s airports.
A document made available to SaharaReporters by a source in the Ministry of Transport indicated that foreign airlines were largely culpable in the missing luggage issue. The document indicated that 8,660 of the missing luggage involved international carriers while just 26 occurred on indigenous airlines.
However, 7,693 of the missing luggage were later found while 993 of such luggage could not be traced to date.
The document indicated that of the 8,660 of the missing luggage involving international airlines, 7,670 were later recovered while 23 of the 26 missing luggage involving the indigenous airlines were returned to their owners.
The document revealed that the giant American airline, Delta led the packs of carriers with missing luggage in 1323, Royal Air Maroc had 1042 while Air France had 1034 missing luggage issues within the period.
At least, 26 of the airlines that operated within and into Nigeria in the period under review were involved in the missing luggage of passengers.
The airlines were African World Airlines with 43 missing luggage, Air Cote’DIvoire; 106, Air France; 1034, Arik Air; 101, Asky; 349, British Airways; 517, Delta Air Lines; 1285, Egypt Air; 230, Emirates; 332; Ethiopian; 335, Etihad Airways; 218, Kenya Airways, 230, KLM; 769 and Lufthansa with 449.
Others were Air Meridiana; 11, Mid Air Africa; three; Middle East Airline; 56, Qatar Airways; 184, Royal Air Maroc; 1042, Rwandair; 404, South African Airways; 171, Turkish Air; 405 while Virgin Atlantic Airways had 245 missing luggage with the period.
However, some of the missing were recovered by the airlines after some few weeks. The breakdown of the recovered missing luggage revealed that African World Airline recovered 57, Air Cote D’Ivoire; 82, Air France; 835, Arik Air; 101, Asky; 349, British Airways; 499, Delta; 1285, Egypt Air; 230, Emirates; 313, Ethiopian Airways; 262 and Etihad Airways with 146 recovered luggage within the period.
Other airlines with recovered luggage in the third quarter of 2017 were Kenya Airways; 162, KLM; 557, Lufthansa 431, Meridiana; six, Mid Air Africa. 31, Middle East Airline; 46, Qatar Airways; 181, Royal Air Marco; 843, Rwandair; 417, South African Airways; 197, Turkish Air; 322 and Virgin Atlantic Airways had 201 missing luggage within the period.
The statistics, however, indicated that some of the airlines recovered more of the missing luggage in the third quarter. This was so because some of the missing luggage predated the quarter under review.
Besides, African World Airlines had one pilfering case in the third quarter of the year, Air France; two, Arik Air; one; Asky; four while Emirates, Ethiopian Airways, KLM, Middle, Rwandair, South African Airways and Turkish Airlines had one pilfering case each.
Royal Air Maroc, which had the second highest of missing luggage, however, led the pack in the number of pilfering of passengers’ luggage with six cases while Qatar Airways had two in the third quarter of the year.
Also, within the period, African World Airlines cancelled seven flights, representing 1.4 per cent of its flights out of Nigeria in the third quarter; Air France, canceled three flights, which was 1.4 per cent flights; Arik Air, canceled five flights, 1.9 per cent; Asky Airlines, two cancelled flights, 0.7 per cent; British Airways, six cancelled, 3.3 per cent; Ethiopian Airlines and Etihad Airways cancelled a flight each, representing 0.4 per cent and 1.9 percent of operations respectively out of Nigeria within the period.
Others were Kenya Airways, two canceled flights of 2.2 percent; Lufthansa, equally cancelled two flights of 0.7 percent; Med-View Airline, canceled seven flights, representing 11.4 percent, Air Mid Africa, cancelled one flight, representing 4.5 percent and Virgin Atlantic Airways canceled one flight, which represented 1.1 percent of its total flight operations out of the country within the period.
In all, all the airlines canceled 38 flights out of Nigeria in the third quarter.