The ‘unruly passenger’ and the negligence of NCAA, FAAN

Obviously, the atmosphere across the country is charged with different people expressing themselves in different manners, a situation which has further heightened tension across the land.

The charged atmosphere is traced to the results of the just concluded general elections which means different things to different folks, particularly political parties and their followers.

The followers of the different political parties who have issues with the elections are not relenting in using every available avenue to express their misgivings about the electoral processes in a bid to seek for justice.

This brings to the fore the recent disruption of flight at the Abuja airport when a passenger who boarded an Ibom Air aircraft decided to use the opportunity to express his disdain for the elections, a situation which led to chaos.

The passenger, who was said to have pitched his tent with a political party, created a scene by insisting on why the president-elect should not be sworn in come May 29, 2023.

As expected, passengers who did not buy his opinion engaged him in open confrontation which led to commotion in the aircraft.

It took the intervention of aviation security officials and the airport police command to restore sanity to the aircraft as they dragged the protesting passenger off the flight.

Agreed that the relevant authorities are already handling the matter, the focus here is the circumstances that preceded the unfortunate development which has further exposed the deep lapses in the system.

According to information made available to the media, the said passenger, who had earlier approached Aero Contractor to obtain a ticket to travel through the same destination was refused the flight having observed his strange attitude which gave rise to suspicion by the airline.

An internal memo, which emanated from Aero Contractors apart from identifying the passenger as an “unruly passenger,” revealed how he was subsequently denied boarding because of his unruly behaviour.

Aero Contractors, after denying him boarding, was said to have equally sent a report on the issue to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) for prompt action.

While the management of Aero Contractors deserves commendation for this, it is however unfortunate that the two major principal players, NCAA and FAAN failed to act promptly.

Definitely, in what can be described as negligence on the part of NCAA and FAAN, their failure to respond to this type of emergency information may discourage other airlines or individuals from drawing their attention to any suspicious activity.

In aviation, no information, no matter how little, should be ignored in view of human lives and huge potential involved.

Had the case led to a major disaster, by now, many of the officials of the agencies would have been found wanting for slacking in their duties.

No serious aviation authority toys with safety issues like unruliness as no one knows the force behind such motive particularly at this critical time Nigeria, like many countries, are being confronted with the high spate of terrorism.

While the Aero Contractors management should not be discouraged by the deficiency in the system and in view of the embarrassment the lapses have created, the airlines should henceforth form the habits of exchanging notes with each other in times of suspicion rather than depend solely on the relevant authorities who will end up ignoring such privileged information.

Above all, let the aviation authorities wake up from their slumber as another opportunity may not be available for them to escape future dangers.