DGCA, Chris Najoma
The familiar turbulence of delayed flights has once again put Nigeria’s aviation sector in the spotlight, this time pitching the regulator against the country’s biggest carrier. When the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority released its August 2026 on-time performance report rating Air Peace top for delayed and cancelled flights, it only confirmed what many passengers already believed.
Anyone who frequents the Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt airports knows the chorus in departure halls and on social media, Air Peace has become synonymous with waiting.
Air Peace, however, is not taking the verdict lying down. In a detailed rebuttal signed by its Chief Operating Officer Oluwatoyin Olajide, the airline has strongly refuted the report, calling it fundamentally inaccurate and damaging to its reputation.
The airline argues that the NCAA underreported its operations by over 700 flights, crediting it with 1,864 flights when it actually operated 2,564 flights in August.
That omission, the airline says, artificially inflates the delay percentage and skews public perception. It also questions the timing and motive, wondering why the NCAA chose to start its monthly series with August, with no July data published, and released the granular report just 13 days after the month ended.
Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema
Beyond the numbers, Air Peace says the report failed to tell the story behind the delays.
According to its internal review, only 391 flights, just 15 percent of its operations for the month, were delayed due to internal issues like technical faults and fuel-related challenges.
The vast majority, the airline insists, were caused by severe external factors completely outside its control. More than half of those external delays were due to airport congestion and tarmac traffic, where aircraft were held on the ground or in holding patterns because of infrastructure limits.
Then there was the unprecedented picketing of the airline by aviation union members from August 11, a disruption Air Peace says lingered for over 14 days and threw its entire rotation into chaos, leading to unavoidable rescheduling and cancellations.
The airline also points to unpredictable wildlife hazards, citing how aircraft 5N-BYG suffered a bird strike in Abuja that damaged its inlet cowl beyond acceptable limits, costing 1.8 million dollars to fix and grounding an aircraft that does eight sectors and carries about 1,000 passengers daily for over a week.
Add to that damage done to another aircraft by a ground handling company that kept it out for more than 14 days, breakdowns in airport facilities, and the peak rainy season weather that forced diversions where a single diversion can mean almost three hours of consequential delay.
In all these, Air Peace says it still took care of passengers with hotel accommodations even when the industry standard does not require it for external events.
Yet the passenger experience cannot be dismissed with data alone. While the airline’s explanations are valid and highlight the decay in Nigeria’s aviation infrastructure, the regular flyer judges by one simple question, did my flight leave on time?
Many passengers who spoke on condition of anonymity acknowledge the reality of weather and congestion but insist Air Peace must also look inward. There are days, they say, when the aircraft is on ground and the delay is announced as operational for hours, with no weather in sight.
This is where the business lesson comes in. Air Peace is no longer just a domestic operator; it is a mega carrier flying to London, Jeddah and across the region, competing with global airlines where on-time performance is currency.
“There are times in business when you stoop to take corrections, because the ultimate goal is growth, trust and profit. Fighting the regulator publicly may win a data argument but it does not win back the passenger who missed a meeting in Abuja,” says Bode Oluwafemi, a frequent flyer.
“The truth, as always, lies in the middle. The NCAA must be beyond reproach. If its data collection method is flawed, it must audit it, publish its methodology transparently and begin to categorize delays by cause, separating what is the airline’s fault from what is systemic failure,” Oluwafemi added.
A blanket report that labels every delay as the airline’s failure without identifying bird strikes, union actions, or ATC congestion will always be seen as unfair and could stifle the very airlines it is meant to guide.
At the same time, Air Peace, even by its own admission of 391 internally caused delays, has room to improve. Investment in fleet, crew and maintenance is commendable, but that investment must be felt on the departure board.
Nigeria’s air travel market is booming, and that boom rests on fragile infrastructure. Until airport capacity is expanded, bird control improved, sunset airports upgraded, ground handling professionalized, and industrial harmony guaranteed, delays will remain.
What passengers want is not a war of press releases between the NCAA and Air Peace, but a collaboration that strikes the balance where regulators regulate with accurate data and empathy, and airlines operate with efficiency and humility.
That is the only way the boom will be sustained.
