Passengers of the Azman Airlines have been stranded at Malam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) for over 24 hours.
Some of the passengers had to spend the night at the departure wing of the airport as they did not learn about the rescheduled flight until late in the evening.
Many of the passengers, travelling to Abuja and Lagos, lamented that they were supposed to fly 4:00pm on Saturday but got the rescheduled notice around 8:00pm.
“I was here yesterday and expected to fly around 4 but these people were not even around to tell us anything. Only to get notification around 8pm that the flight had been rescheduled to today (Sunday). Some of us spent the night here. This is totally disappointing,” Jamilu Rabiu, one of the passengers said.
Daily Trust gathered from some staff in the airport that the airline had been having some challenges with aviation oil marketers.
One of the staff said many passengers including women with infants and children found it difficult to take themselves back to their destinations or get Hotel to spend the rest of the day.
“Some passengers were here yesterday around 11:00pm. They complained to them about accommodation and they were taken to hotel. But some have left while some remained here until today,” an official of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), who craved anonymity said.
However, one of the company’s staff member was quoted as saying the problem arose as a result of technical difficulties, assuring that the passengers would fly around 6:30pm (on Sunday).
“As you can see we are now clearing yesterday’s passengers. We have 4:00pm yesterday and 7:30am and another 4:00pm today. So we are expected to clear them today (Sunday).”
“One of our aircraft is coming in the next one hour and we will clear yesterday’s passengers and today’s 7:30pm. They all have collected their boarding passes and now we are waiting for the flight,” he said.
But many of the passengers expressed doubts on whether the flight would still go ahead on Sunday as stated by the official as no aircraft of the company was on ground around 4:30pm when our reporter spoke with them.
“My flight is today 4:00pm but they didn’t clear us as they only considered yesterday passengers. So we are not sure of our own. We can only wait and see,” one of the passengers said.
