The management of Air Peace has refuted the allegations in a trending online video which claimed that the airline left its passengers stranded at Gatwick Airport because it over booked its flight as well as closed the check-in counter earlier.
The management which described the allegations in the said online video as a deliberate and malicious attempt to tarnish the image of Air Peace, told African Business Travel News (ABTNEWS) that none of the allegations raised against it was true.
In its explanations on why the passenger in the said video was not flown on the April 8 flight from London Gatwick Airport to Lagos, Nigeria, the management said the affected passenger did not arrive at the airport at scheduled time and that there was no way the flight could be delayed because the airport operates a slot system.
“We want to state categorically that the passenger, who the narrator escorted to the airport, came very late after check-in phase was already concluded and the counter had closed.
“Gatwick Airport operate by slot timings allocated to each of the airlines operating out of this airport. The check-in operations of airlines are slot-based, and airlines take turns based on their approved times. Once your slot timing is up, you must vacate the counters for the next airline’s utilization. The check-in process ends at 09:00am, as advised in the Terms and Conditions section of our e-ticket and website, and the counter was vacated by Air Peace in accordance with our slot allocation at 09:55am,” the airline explained.
It further explained that it had sent series of messages at intervals of six hours to the passengers to remind them of their flights and the check-in formalities before their flight departure.
” To ensure passengers do not miss their flights, we send them multiple messages at different times before their flight – 24hrs, 14hrs and 6hrs before flight departure.
“Departure for this flight was scheduled for 11:10am, so all processes needed to adhere to this time.,” Air Peace added.
On the allegation of overbooking, the airline said that the Civil Aviation Authorities in UK and Nigeria can attest to the fact that the flight wasn’t overbooked and that there were empty seats on the flight.
“It was also claimed that we overbooked our flight. The UK Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority can attest to the number of passengers on our manifest for the said flight. The aircraft left Gatwick with some seats unoccupied, so no overbooking took place.
“Gatwick Airport has CCTV coverage showing the time the passenger arrived at the airport/Air Peace counter and the time the maker of this video got to the airport.
Air Peace which added that the late arriving passenger duly paid the no show fee and was booked to travel on a subsequent flight, and therefore the issue was resolved at the airport, however expressed disappointment that a different version of what transpired was circulating.
Iinsisting that it will continue to do its best to meet the needs of its passengers, Air Peace therefore urged passengers to work with it to ensure they can travel to their destinations by adhering to specified times, saying “Your Peace is Our Goal”.
