Air Peace counters NCAA flight delay report

Air Peace counters NCAA flight delay report

The management of Air Peace has refuted the recent flight disruption report published by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for August 2026.

The airline said in a statement Thursday signed by its chief operating officer, Toyin Olajide, that the report contains fundamental data inaccuracies regarding its operational volume and mischaracterises the root causes of flight delays, unfairly placing the blame on the airline.

It noted that the data failed to reflect the reality of its operations, nor accurately contextualise the primary drivers of the operational disruptions experienced during the said month.

Olajide said, “First and foremost, the NCAA report vastly underreported our total flight volume. Air Peace operated a total of 2,564 flights in August 2026, as opposed to the 1,864 flights stated in the NCAA report. By omitting over 700 fully operational flights from the data pool, the NCAA’s calculations skew our actual performance metrics and artificially inflated the reported delay percentages. Most worrisome is, Why did NCAA start the monthly series with August rather than July, immediately following publication of Q1 and Q2 on 31st of July?

“It is indeed worrisome that there is still no equivalent monthly data located for July, yet NCAA published unusually granular August airline delay data only 13 days after month-end. Unbelievable!

“It is reasonable to suggest that the early release of the August’s publication was accompanied by disclosure that the month contained an extraordinary aviation-sector industrial disruption which significantly affected the airline’s operations. The effect of the August 11th instigated Union disruptions of our operations lingered for over 14days leading to rescheduling, avoidable delays and cancelation of Flights.

“Why was this report published rapidly without identifying the causes of the delays attributed to individual airlines instead of publishing wrong figures that could tarnish the reputation of the airline despite prevailing operational challenges?

“Furthermore, the characterization of these delays failed to differentiate between internal operational issues and severe ²systemic challenges that are completely outside the airline’s control.

“An internal review of our August 2026 flight data performance analysis reveals that 391 flights which is only 15% of the delays experienced during the month of August were caused by internal factors. The rest of the delays experienced by Air Peace were caused by external factors, and we have the data to support this.

“From the above, only 391 flights should be attributed to Air Peace which represents 15% of the delay in that month.

“The internal delay causal factors were largely as a result of technical issues resulting in unscheduled maintenance on our aircraft and fuel related issues.”

Olajide said the major external disruptions were airport congestion and traffic which accounted for more than 51% of the external delays experienced; bird strikes; deficiencies in airport facilities and unexpected breakdowns in airport infrastructure; inclement weather conditions; unprecedented picketing of the airline by aviation union members creating disruptions to flight operations for over 14 days; and damage done to its aircraft by Ground Handling Company which resulted in removal of the aircraft from active flights for more than 14 days.

“Air Peace has heavily invested in its fleet, crew availability, continuous high standard trainings and maintenance protocols. We remain fully committed to safety, on-time performance and passenger satisfaction; however, an airline cannot safely or logistically bypass severe airport congestion/traffic, inadequate airport infrastructure, sunset restrictions or adverse weather conditions. We will continue to optimize our internal processes to mitigate against all the internal delay drivers.

“We respectfully urge the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority to review and audit its data collection methods to ensure future reports accurately reflect the correct data and delay causal factors/ operational environment of Nigerian aviation Sector,” the airline added.