By Chinelo Obogo, [email protected] 09051862508
Nigeria’s Air Peace, Ghana’s Africa World Airlines, Germany’s Lufthansa Air, Turkish Airline and British Airways have emerged the top five, beating 27 airlines operating international flights from Nigeria for the Year 2021.
Independent research carried out by the organisers of Jabamah Travelers Award, who are also publishers of Atqnews.com, used statistics released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other sources to rank the winners from among the international airlines in Nigeria and the airlines with the lowest scores were chosen as winners.
The top 15 airlines were profiled from a pool of 27 international airlines that operated 9,673 flights and carried over two million passengers from five airports in Nigeria. Percentage of flight delays, number of lost baggage, unresolved complaints, total number of flights, and total number of passengers were the parameters used in the ranking.
From the data collected, Ghana’s Africa World Airline (AWA), had the lowest scores of 23. It ranked as number one in the number of flights executed in 2021 to Lagos and Abuja. It did a total of 1,141 flights using an Embraer E145. It had 35 per cent flight delay with no baggage lost and no unresolved passenger complaints out of 90,574 passengers it carried.
Turkish Airlines came second as the best international airline in Nigeria for the year 2021. It had 669 flights using Airbus A330, A300 and Boeing B737 flights to Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. It carried 210,585 passengers, the 4th highest with 24 per cent flight delay and no unresolved complaints. It came 13th out of the top 15 international airlines in the case of lost baggage and had no unresolved passengers’ complaints.
Germany’s Lufthansa airlines was ranked third among the international airline operating in Nigeria. It operated 555 flights carrying 153,780 passengers from three airports of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt using an Airbus A330 aircraft. It suffered 21 per cent flight delays and had a good record in lost baggage as it is ranked third out of top 15 airlines. It ranked 11th in unresolved passenger complaints out of 15 airlines which is low.
Nigeria’s Air Peace was ranked fourth. It carries out its international operations out of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport using B777, E195 E2 and B737 to eight destinations. It operated 699 flights with 31 per cent delays and carried 65,037 passengers. It had zero unresolved complaints by passengers but ranked 12th out of 15 Airlines in lost baggage complaints.
British Airways is ranked fifth with 584 flights carrying the highest number of passengers 238,339 in 2021. It suffered 29 per cent flight delay operating a B777 aircraft. It ranked 8th out of 15 airlines in lost baggage complaints, and 11th out of 15 airlines in matters of unresolved passenger complaints.
On the domestic front, between 65 and 70 aircraft operated by 10 Nigerian airlines carried over 12 million passengers to over 20 active airports in Nigeria and the organisers had earlier announced Ibom Air as the best domestic airline in Nigeria, defeating four others to clinch the award. This was based on the ranking of Nigerian airlines using the following parameters: average age of aircraft, schedule integrity, spread of services, customer care, inflight services and total number of flights done in 2021.
Air Peace won the award of the best Nigerian international airline of the year while Ibom Air came tops with the lowest score of 12 having topped the chart in four of the parameters. It did badly in spread as it flies to only six destinations, so it ranked eight out of the 10 airlines that were profiled. It also had the second highest number of flights done despite having seven aircraft and was flying to only six destinations. It had done more flights than airlines that had more planes and flew to more destinations.
Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, was chosen as the travel personality of the Year 2021 due to his consistent performance in aviation as Air Peace is the first airline to bring in a new commercial passenger plane to Nigeria in over 10 years. Five brand new Embraer E195 E2 aircraft were received by Air Peace for operations in Nigeria.
His airline evacuated stranded Nigerians in many countries and became the official carrier of the Super Eagles and his pan Nigeria messages endeared him to Nigerians as a unifying leader and they rallied in support of the airline during the impasse with the United Arab Emirate (UAE). Jabamah Travelers Award, instituted in 1996 by Travelers Magazine and Atqnews.com, will be held on March 11, 2022 in Abuja where the airlines will be presented with the awards.