An Air Peace flight scheduled to airlift Nigerians who had fled Ukraine to Poland as a result of the bloody hostilities between Russia and its next-door neighbour has been postponed.
The Federal Government, had on Wednesday announced that it had secured the services of Max Air and Air Peace to help airlift Nigerians who fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries like Romania, Hungary, and Poland following the ongoing bloody hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.
However, an Air Peace charter flight billed to airlift Nigerians currently in Warsaw, Poland was cancelled Thursday, and unable to perform operation due to the delay by the passengers in getting to the airport.
It was gathered that about 350 Nigerians registered to be evacuated from Poland are currently in the country as the flight was cancelled.
Speaking on the development, Chairman, Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema attributed the development to certain communications gap between the students and the Nigerian embassy in Warsaw.
Onyema who spoke on Arise TV said there was low turn out from Nigerians willing to be evacuated.
He explained that the aircraft landed in Poland at about 9am as scheduled but couldn’t continue operation as only two Nigerians were present at the time. He added that the aircraft crew decided to wait for more people to turn up, but they couldn’t go on with the flight as the duty hour allocated to them elapsed.
According to him, the pilots spent five hours out of the nine hours billed for them to fly to Nigeria waiting for passengers to come on board.
Onyema said: “The job of the airline is just to get in there(Poland) and pick every citizen out. The number and how they are going to get to the airport is dependent on the Nigerian mission out there. Our flight landed at 9:02am this morning and we were to depart at 10am this morning. But at 10am, only two passengers were at the airport. Five hours later, not more than five people were there and we were told that alot of them will be coming much later. The duty turn of a pilot will expire because these pilots will fly nine hours to Nigeria and if you add it to the delay, they will be flouting the regulations.
“Again, be mindful that we stationed these pilots two days ago, it wasn’t the pilot that flew that aircraft into Poland that will be bringing the aircraft back to Nigeria. No, we felt we should use a commercial airline to fly our pilots out there (Poland), a complete set of crew out there waiting for these arrival. So they reported to work at about 8:30am today.
“Immediately the aircraft landed, they went into the aircraft to take over. However, they waited till 2pm and people were not coming.
“Nobody should be blamed, evacuation is not an easy thing, we have done it before, what we did in South Africa was very seamless.
“What is happening here like the ambassador was saying, maybe the reluctance of people, but I think, most importantly, from the information I got from out there, alot of them(Nigerians) because of the movement from Ukraine, having to trek long distance, lost their documents and the embassy was trying hard to make their documentation come right. Some of them were even fatigued after all those trips to the hotel and they couldn’t make it to the airport on time.
Speaking further, the Air Peace boss urged the government to fast-track all processes to ensure that the Nigerians willing to be evacuated are present at the airport as at when due.
He added that the flight initially scheduled for today has been shifted till tomorrow, by 6am.
“The airline cannot continue to wait, already it is costing the airline alot… We have given them 6am departure (time) for tomorrow in the morning, I pray and wish that this time around they will be out there for us to take them,” he added.
