By Louis Ibah

The Nigerian aviation industry has witnessed a rise in recent months in the number of incidences involving passenger hostility and assaults on regulatory and airlines’ staff. The attacks, primarily fuelled by flight delays and cancellation have raised fresh fears about the safety of Nigerian airports given that all reported incidences occurred at airport terminals with security officials unable to restrain nor get the perpetrators arrested or prosecuted.
As noted by the spokesperson of Arik Air, Adebanji Ola, “passengers continue to take the laws into their hands and the severity and frequency of such criminal acts are on the rise due to lack of appropriate action or preventative measures from security agencies at the airport.”
In fact, an airline official told Daily Sun that the industry estimates it deals with approximately 20 cases of unruly passenger behaviour which involves verbal or physical assault on airline staff and destruction of property on days flights are either delayed or cancelled in Nigeria.

Major reasons for assaults
A combination of acute shortages of aviation fuel as well as the recent onset of the harmattan haze and the attendant impaired visibility for pilots to take off and land safely at airports across the country have led to a spate of cancellation or flight delayed in Nigeria. The other factor has to do with delays in the arrival of passenger baggage.

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Worse cases
Although almost all the airlines operating in Nigeria have recorded one or more incidents of unruly passenger behaviour, the worst case scenario were, however, recorded with passenger attacks on Arik Air, its staff and property.
Arik Air, without doubt, operates the largest fleet of aircraft in Nigeria and managing passengers and aircraft distribution on its many routes has been its major headache. In fact, many passengers perceive the airline as being notorious with flight cancellation and delays. “Arik Air can disappoint you at anytime,” one passenger told Daily Sun.
It was therefore not surprising to industry watchers when the airline had its own dose of passenger transferred aggression on Wednesday, January 4, 2017, with its Lagos-New York JFK service, which was to operate at 11:30pm but had to be rescheduled by 24 hours to operate at 11:30pm on Thursday, January 5, 2017 due to shortage of aviation fuel. Arik Air pursued all possible options to source fuel for the international flights on January 4, 2017 but when its Customer Service Manager at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, approached the passengers to explain the situation to them, one of the passengers chased and attacked him. This was followed by a mob of passengers who brutally beat, kicked and chased the Arik Air staff throughout the terminal building leading to the Immigration Section of the terminal. The staff was later rushed to the hospital where he was treated for injuries sustained during the attack.
On January 5, 2017, some passengers on an Arik Air flight also damaged the airline’s check-in counters, check-in systems and equipment, preventing the airline from servicing or check-in passengers at the Lagos airport.
Again on the same day some of the passengers continued to disrupt the airline’s check-in process by preventing Arik Air staff from performing their duties by sleeping on the conveyor belts, sleeping or sitting on the floor in the check-in area and forcibly occupying the airline’s ticketing and administrative offices, resulting in the cancellation of some of the international flights, including the Lagos-London Heathrow-Lagos service. In December 2016, delayed on baggage arrival at Medview Airline for its London-Lagos passengers also drew sharp protests by passengers. Another notable case was the recent suspension of flights by Turkish Airline on its Lagos-Istanbul flights, which drew protests by passengers following shoddy accommodation and feeding arrangements by the airline.

Can passengers get redress?
Airfares don’t come cheap. And passengers who cough out huge sums to pay airfares and go to airports just want to fly out to keep their dates. Anything that therefore stalls such movements gets passengers infuriated. “But no matter the level of frustration, no passenger has the right to take the law into his or her hands by attacking airline staff,” said spokesman for NCAA, Mr. Sam Adurogboye.
“What we are experiencing lately in Nigeria borders on unruly behaviours and attacks and this is a criminal offence when a passenger has to resort to beating up airline staff. There are usually legitimate channels where passengers can get redress or justice if they feel their rights have been infringed upon by the airline, but sadly, so many passengers are unaware of these channels,” he added.

Steps to take to get redress
Adurogboye said the first step an aggrieved passenger should take in seeking redress is to first approach the officials of the airline in question and lodge a complaint. Passengers must, however, always take the time to read the terms and conditions spelt out by the airline on the tickets they purchase to know where the airline is liable and where it is not. For instance, online and promotional tickets that attract “cheaper airfares” usually come with different terms and conditions from tickets bought at airline counters. Some airlines include in their terms and conditions situations in which they can refuse or refund passengers their fares or get them lodged in hotels in situations where flights are suspended or cancelled. But where breaches to such terms and conditions are committed, passengers have to be very courageous in seeking redress.
If the airline’s front desk or ticketing officer appears not to be cooperating to resolve an issue, the passenger can skip such an official and demand to see the airline’s manager at the airport. Most passengers hardly realise that airlines don’t want to lose any single passenger, especially business and first class passengers.  And so managers are usually trained to be more tolerant and patient to assist in resolving passengers’ problems.
“Where a passenger is not satisfied with the responses from the airline, he is free to approach the Consumer Protection Directorate (CPD) officials of NCAA. They are located at departure and arrival halls of all major airports in Nigeria offering 24-hour service. But people don’t know they exist,” Adurogboye said.
“The role of the CPD officer who is well trained and has all the knowledge on what it takes to protect the passenger is first to obtain the required information from the aggrieved passenger, file it and promptly bring the necessary parties inside for the resolution of the issue,” he explained. Adurogboye said every week, hundreds of aggrieved or abused passengers are being assisted to get justice by CPD officials at both domestic and international airports in Nigeria. He said many passengers who hitherto thought they would not get refunds from airlines are usually shocked to discover they can be assisted to get their money back.  “But if a party to the dispute is still not satisfied, then they can recourse to seeking legal redress in Nigerian courts,” he said.
Passengers who fly to Nigeria from the United Kingdom, United States and other foreign countries can also file a class suit against a Nigerian carrier or foreign carrier that infringes on their rights. A “class action” lawsuit is one in which a group of people with the same or similar injuries caused by the same product or action sue the defendant as a group.
The class action originated from the United States and is still predominantly a US phenomenon but several European countries with civil law have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organisations to bring claims on behalf of consumers. Proponents of class actions state that they offer a number of advantages because they aggregate a large number of individualised claims into one representational lawsuit.
The resort to verbal or physical violence in any form by a passenger is not acceptable under the Nigerian civil aviation law. Unruly passengers can be held civilly or criminally accountable for their actions through a number of avenues.

Litigation and sanctions
There had been instances in recent months that should give aggrieved passengers hope that they can get redress. For instance, worried by the rise in the violation of  passenger rights by airlines operating in Nigeria, the Federal Government in 2016 took Turkish Airline to court to get justice for the aggrieved passengers. The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, filed a three-count charge against the airline and two of its principal officers, Liker Ayci and Rasak Shobowale, before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The Federal Government, through the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), had arraigned the accused persons before the court “for allegedly neglecting, without sufficient cause, to attend and testify before the CPC on the number of passengers aboard the Turkish Airlines Flight 623 from Istanbul to Abuja on December 25 and 31, 2015, as well as January 9, 2016, who were affected by its untimely delivery of baggage, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 18 of the CPC’s enabling law.”
The Federal Government also accused the airline and its two principal officers of violating the same section of the CPC Act by neglecting, without sufficient cause, to attend and testify before the CPC on the detailed steps taken by the airline to provide redress and compensation to passengers aboard its Flight 623 from Istanbul to Abuja on the said dates, who were affected by its untimely delivery of baggage. It was the first time the CPC will attempt to bite on behalf of abused passengers in the aviation sector and the action elicited a lot of excitement and support from industry stakeholders.
In the same vein, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had slammed a fine of N6 million on Arik Air for the delay and inability to ferry passengers’ checked-in luggage on the airline’s services from London Heathrow Airport to the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos between December 2 and 4, 2016.
The NCAA also directed Arik Air  to pay each affected passenger, within 30 days, the sum of $150 as compensation for inconveniences suffered as a result of delayed arrival of their luggage.