Dangers in using social media to run down airlines

A dangerous trend of ‘pull it down’ which is synonymous with politicians whenever elections are around the corner, though not peculiar to Nigerian politicians, is gradually spreading to other areas.

While this attitude is not strange to the political class, as bad as it is though, the trend is fast spreading like wild fire into other areas including businesses. In other words, out of rivalry, people now try to bring down other people’s businesses especially those that are thriving.

It looks as if this trend is now on the rise with the availability social media and other online networks to help such people nail their targets.

The pull it down trend may be accommodated in the political class and some businesses, but the trend may be unacceptable in some other areas in view of their uniqueness and sensitivity.

This brings to the fore the ongoing use of social media to get at some domestic  airlines operating in Nigeria.

First to experience this dangerous practice was Air Peace airline. Surprisingly, the attack on Air Peace came through a religious network via a controversial prophecy requesting the public not to fly the airline on a particular date mentioned by the prophet behind the prophecy.

The prophet attributed his stand to the fact that he saw danger lurking around the date for the airline.

But the airline in a swift response through its spokesperson, Chris Iwarah did not only ask the public to dismiss the recorded voice note which disseminated the message through Whatsapp and other social media channels, but described the voice message as the handiwork of fraudsters bent on ‘de-marketing’ the airline.

As the dust was yet to settle, Dana Air also alerted of a similar move by some questionable people to use the same social media network to persuade the flying public not to fly it or patronise its sister companies, particularly the one providing the Dana branded rice.

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Reacting on behalf of Dana Air, its image maker, Kinsgley Ezenwa declared: “While we would ordinarily not want to dignify the perpetrators and their paymasters with a response, we felt the need to unearth their puerile, senseless and deliberate act of peddling two false broadcast messages about a single brand in one day. It is either their paymaster is so clueless to have advised them to circulate both messages in one day or the perpetrators decided to be overzealous.

“Dana Air  has been battling and navigating these mischief-makers since inception in 2008, when the airline took the industry by storm by offering pocket-friendly fares, on-time departures, world-class in-flight service and above all, safe and reliable air transport, which the flying public never felt was possible at the time.”

While no one except those behind this dangerous trend targeted at the airlines knows what their motives are, one thing they should realise is the fact that airline business is not for dirty minds or for those seeking self-glorification.

Besides, running an airline is based on a well set out procedure and process in line with stipulated international standard and recommended practices devoid of any local or regional politics.

This is why we have the various aviation agencies such as the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) responsible for carrying out oversight safety functions on the airlines operating in the country.

Therefore, for any airline flying within Nigeria, the regulatory body, the NCAA, must have done the required due diligence on its fitness and airworthiness strength to ascertain if it is safe or otherwise.

So far so good, at least in the past three years, Nigeria’s airspace has been seamless with almost zero accidents.

It is therefore unfortunate for some people somewhere, because of personal interest, to decide to create panic in the system by ‘mysteriously’ castigating some airlines as unsafe without knowing what airline safety entails.

People should exempt the airlines and the aviation sector entirely from this dangerous and selfish game. If at all anyone is suspicious of any airline, the best body to be allowed to investigate is the NCAA, and not just rushing to place any spurious  thing on the social media.

While it is good to foresee and prophesy for the purpose of averting calamity, this can never be enough for running any airline because there is no amount of prophesy or prayer that can avert any danger if an airline fails to equip itself with required safety components including its aircraft as stipulated by the aviation regulators.

Such unfortunate moves do not only create fear in the minds of air travelers, but make Nigerians and the aviation sector a laughing stock to the global world, just because somebody wants to score a cheap questionable point.