Lagos, 23 September 2026
Air Peace has offered human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong a 25 per cent discount on a one-way domestic ticket, exclusive of tax, as compensation for a disrupted Lagos–Enugu service that was due to depart at 6.45am on Monday.
In a post on Wednesday, Mr Effiong said the airline emailed him that morning to say the offer had been approved and could be used on any of its domestic routes. He described the gesture as a response to a directive from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) after he publicly complained about the flight.
The 6.45am Air Peace service from Murtala Muhammed Airport to Enugu was rescheduled to 4.50pm. Mr Effiong said he had checked in the previous night and arrived at Terminal One at about 5.50am, only to find passengers waiting for more than an hour before staff announced the delay. He said the disruption caused him to miss a court appearance in Enugu that had been listed for definite hearing.
The NCAA’s director of public affairs and consumer protection, Michael Achimugu, said a preliminary review found that the airline had sent passengers an incorrect notification about the flight. The regulator directed Air Peace to prepare a compensation package under Part 19 of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations 2023, which sets out passenger rights when flights are delayed, rescheduled or cancelled. Mr Achimugu said timely and honest information was essential and that the wrong notification could not be treated as force majeure.
Mr Effiong said the discount should not obscure what he called the airline’s “perennial lacklustre, arrogant and frustrating attitude”. He argued that cancellations and delays had been normalised and pointed to NCAA figures showing that 71 per cent of Air Peace’s domestic flights were delayed in August. Official summaries of that month recorded 1,330 delayed flights out of 1,864 services operated by the carrier, a rate of 71.4 per cent, against an industry delay rate of about 60 per cent across 7,961 domestic flights.
Air Peace has disputed those August figures, saying it operated 2,564 flights rather than the 1,864 listed by the NCAA and that most disruptions were caused by external factors, including industrial action that began on 11 August. The airline has said only about 15 per cent of its delays that month were internally caused.
Mr Effiong praised the swift response of Mr Achimugu and the NCAA in this case but said Nigeria still needed a stiffer regulatory framework to protect air passengers. “Air Peace should realise that it can no longer continue to operate with impunity,” he wrote. “We will continue to hold Air Peace and other airlines accountable.”
Under the consumer protection rules, passengers on domestic flights may be entitled to compensation of 25 per cent of the ticket price in specified circumstances, as well as care such as refreshments, communication and, in longer delays, accommodation. The offer sent to Mr Effiong is a 25 per cent discount on a future one-way fare rather than a cash payment of 25 per cent of the ticket he had already bought.
Air Peace has not issued a detailed public statement on the value of the package for all passengers on the Monday service. The NCAA has said the airline would avoid sanctions if it provided compensation and the required duty of care, but warned that heavier penalties could follow if it failed to comply.
By John James
