Eight domestic carriers operated 13,255 flights in the third quarter of 2017 while 8,173 of the flights were delayed, according to the summary of flight operations by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
The report however showed an upward trend in the flight operations compared to the previous first and second quarters of the year when 21,662 flights were operated between January and June.
It would be recalled that the eight carriers operated 54, 682 flights in 2016 while there is expected to be an upsurge in flights operation in the last quarter with the forthcoming yuletide festivities.
According to the third quarter report obtained by Daily Trust at the weekend, 96 flights were cancelled by the airlines including Arik Air, Air Peace, Med-View, Dana, Azman, Aero Contractors and Overland in the period under review.
However, on the international front, complaints rose against the carriers over missing and delayed luggage with 8,660 cases of missing luggage recorded from the 3,664 flights operated. 7,670 of the missing luggage were found, it was learnt.
Between July and September, Air Peace operated 3,811 flights followed by Arik Air which operated 3,285 flights while Dana and Med-View Airline operated 1,762 and 1,394 flights respectively.
Others are Azman Air (1, 127); Aero Contractors (1,095); Overland (542) while First Nation which operation was temporarily reverted to charter by the NCAA operated paltry 239 flights in three months.
The delay chart also saw Air Peace leading with 2,166 delayed according to NCAA while Arik delayed 2,057 just as Dana Air delayed 1,079 flights. Med-View on its part delayed 986 flights within the period; Aero, 684; Azman delayed 712; Overland delayed 391 flights while First Nation delayed 98 flights.
Meanwhile, Chairman of Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema blamed the delays on obsolete equipment at the airport, saying the terminal where his carrier operates for instance has only one security scanner for 1000 passengers travelling at a time.
He said in the course of screening the passengers, the flight that is scheduled for 7: 00 am may end up taking off at 7:30 while affecting other flights for the day.
On the international flights, Delta Airline topped the list of carriers with missing luggage with 1, 323 cases followed by Royal Air Maroc with 1,042 cases. Air France has 1,034 missing luggage; KLM has 769; British Airways has 517 missing luggage.
Others are Lufthansa with 449 missing luggage; Turkish Airline, 405; Emirates, 332; Ethiopian 335, among others.
Out of the flights operated on the international routes, 1, 076 were delayed while 38 flights were cancelled, it was learnt.
