Nigeria Content Online

On
Sunday, 30 May, the last Aero Contractors flight to Abuja was delayed
for over an hour because of an altercation on board. After check in
formalities have been concluded, it turned out that five passengers did
not have seats; the aircraft had more passengers than it could carry
legitimately.

The
five refused to disembark, insisting that they had to get Abuja, having
paid fully for their tickets and after being checked in formally. The
argument went on until a man volunteered to get down, saying he could
make his journey the next day. Gradually, four others disembarked, and
the five protesters were airlifted to Abuja.

Though
Aero rebooked the passengers for the next flight, the first on Monday
morning and also gave free one way tickets to them, usable within a
year, and also paid the taxi fare back home for the first passenger who
volunteered to get down, the incident again highlighted the problems
besetting the airline.

Increasingly,
travellers are getting piqued with the manner in which Aero Contractors
attends to customers who booked their tickets online, just as the
experience raises the possibility of a faulty computer system for its
online booking.

Embarrassing acts

Describing
the act as “inhumane”, some of them disclosed that passengers who book
online are treated poorly, compared to those who purchase their tickets
at the ticketing and reservation stands of the airline.

“After
joining their (Aero) Owerri to Lagos flight, I could not travel back to
Owerri with my return ticket on their flight when I got to the airport.
I was told that the aircraft was filled and my seat has been taken over
by another passenger, who I guess, paid cash for his ticket,” said a
woman who gave her name as Nkechi.

Nkechi,
who admitted that she benefitted from the low online fare of the
airline when coming to Lagos from Owerri, however, argued that the
carrier should make necessary provisions for whatever seat they sell to
travellers, “whether online customers or not.”

“It
is inhumane to stop one from travelling when he or she has made
arrangements of leaving that day,” she said. “They should know the
number of passengers who booked online and those who purchased tickets
directly at the airport for any aircraft, so as to stop embarrassing
people by telling them that they cannot fly because the aircraft is
filled.”

Another
traveller, who prefers anonymity, disclosed that on getting to the
airport at the stipulated minutes before the departure of her flight,
she was denied access to the aircraft on the grounds that her seat has
being sold out to another customer, adding that she booked online.

“I
couldn’t fly for they told me that my seat has been sold out,” she
said. “I was also told to pay an extra amount for the regular seat in
order to be able to travel, can you imagine this?” The passenger, who
was on her way to Calabar, the Cross River State capital from Lagos,
maintained that she followed all requisite procedures provided by Aero
on its website directing passengers on how to book and when to arrive
the airport for their flights, yet she was unable to fly.

“I
arrived at the airport 30 minutes before departure, and I did pay for
the ticket with my ATM card as they said online, but I cannot
understand why they had to sell my seat to another person,” she said.

Aero
Contractors has been at the forefront in online sale of promotional low
cost tickets, ranging from N3, 000 to N7, 000 for one-way flights,
which has created a surge in their ticket sales.

However,
series of calls and text messages to Simon Tumba, the media consultant
for the airline, did not yield positive response, as he promised to
react to the complaints of the aggrieved customers but did not do so
for two days.