AirNigeria Asks Passengers To Donate £40 Each To Buy Fuel To Fly From London

In a scandalous twist of events, we learned that an Air Nigeria crew at Gatwick Airport yesterday asked passengers to contribute £40 each to enable them purchase fuel to depart for Lagos several hours after the flight’s takeoff was delayed.

About 190 passengers on Flight LOS-VK 0292/08 said they were surprised by the request.  They confronted the airline official who had made the request, and he quickly disappeared from the riotous scene.

The flight, which was scheduled to fly out of London at 9:50a.m, eventually did so at 5p.m., arriving in Lagos at 12:30a.m.   But the ordeal of the passengers was hardly over.

A passenger, Lekan Fatodu told us that when they arrived at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, they discovered their baggage had not arrived with them. They were left stranded for several hours before an official of the airline told them to return the next day for their luggage.

It was learned that the airline’s bag handling service, Swissport, refused to provide ground-handling services to the airline because Air Nigeria had not met its obligations to the company.



Air Nigeria’s embattled owner, Jimoh Ibrahim, last week announced the sacking of over 500 workers at the airline and suspension of all flight services starting from tomorrow, September 10.

Mr. Ibrahim claimed that his workers were disloyal to the company but the workers said during a street protest that Mr. Ibrahim was a bad manager who diverted funds given to the airline by the Nigerian government and is negligent in aircraft maintenance. The workers have not received salaries since April 2012.

Mr. John Nnorom, a former chief financial officer of the airline told us yesterday that of the 11 aircraft in Air Nigeria's fleet, only one is serviceable. We learnt that most lessors have repossessed their aircrafts from Air Nigeria, leaving it with only four aircrafts.

Following the publication by SaharaReporters of a powerful petition by Mr. Nnorom detailing the troubles facing the ailing airline, Air Nigeria’s operations were suspended.

The petition appeared on June 4, one day after a Dana Air MD-83 aircraft crashed near the Lagos airport killing 159 people.

The international flights were operated through a wet lease arrangement between Egypt Air and AirNigeria.

Posted: at 9-09-2012 10:23 PM (11 years ago) | Gistmaniac

  smfh and useless obasanjo sits there and say nigeria nor jaga jaga

Posted: at 9-09-2012 10:47 PM (11 years ago) | Newbie

If this is true, then what a SHAME SHAME SHAME!!! What height of embarrassment! These ridiculous stories can only come from Naija. My goodness...

---

Posted: at 9-09-2012 11:07 PM (11 years ago) | Gistmaniac

Goodluck is a weak president that is why all the top officials have right to do whatever they wish.
im not surprise ..........

Posted: at 9-09-2012 11:26 PM (11 years ago) | Upcoming

make una thank God for ur life's

Posted: at 10-09-2012 12:05 AM (11 years ago) | Upcoming

naija

Posted: at 10-09-2012 12:24 AM (11 years ago) | Gistmaniac

Nothing is improving in that country absolutely......

---

Posted: at 10-09-2012 12:32 AM (11 years ago) | Hero

Joker in d air

Posted: at 10-09-2012 02:04 AM (11 years ago) | Newbie

 A ghana man once asked me how far charli, and after what seem an hour
I told him  a million miles still uncover, this is the story of nugeria, the truth of the
mater is that if you never believe in a caurse, it is difficult for you to be succe-
ssful in it,Nigerian never believe in the entity called nigeria,everyone believe in
a few months there will be no more this entity, wt this minedset on all heads of
parastatal,all esterblished organ is base on the sandy soil,
really, the tragic history of nigeria is not worst than that of many modern nation
but perharp the 21st  global media world is not to our advantage,the knowledge
instead of encouraging is rather stimulating fear of eventual demise of the ill
fated child,there exist a big mistrust among nigerians,tipical nigerian mirrore
setting is NIJAPAL FUROM. calculating that,possible avarage age grade of
commentetors here are between 15 and 40s plus or minors, going through
daily topics,what gernerate much 'FUN' here is ethinic hatrates,very easy to
describe a national house of assembly  that could emerge from these 'furom
say 2019', I don't know if there is posslbility for red sea to mix up with blue sea,
I fear for the worst come 2015. I hv luv for one NIGERIA,
 

Posted: at 10-09-2012 04:10 AM (11 years ago) | Upcoming

Wat a shame. Wat does Jimoh Ibrahim who is into oil and gas kn wit air plane if nt for man kn man biznes nigerian and govt are doing. Dats why its only naija u go see an engineer working as a banker.

Posted: at 10-09-2012 05:08 AM (11 years ago) | Addicted Hero