Missed Flight Saga: Aggrieved Passangers Relive Experiences, Back Oshiomhole
The spat between Senator Adams Oshiomhole and officials of Air Peace at the Lagos airport on Wednesday, has opened a floodgate of complaints by other passangers aggrieved by the airline’s frequent flight disruptions.
Some of the passengers, who also could not make their flight like Oshiomhole, expressed their anger at what they described as the airline’s persistent hiccups in its flight schedules.
One of the affected passangers, who is the Executive Director the African Travel Commission,
Lucky Onoriode George, gave an account of what transpired between Oshiomhole and the airline’s officials.
In a media post on Thursday, George slammed the airline’s officials for twisting facts regarding the incident and rushing to feed the public with falsehood.
In the post, titled, “Exposing Air Peace: 1,000 Lies and Counting,” George confirmed that the airline’s officials indeed offered Oshiomhole a preferential arrangement that could have seen him make the trip a few minutes later.
He however, stated that the senator declined the offer and chose to stick with other distraught passangers whose flight was also aborted.
“I was present from the beginning to the end of the incident, and I can confirm that Senator Adams Oshiomhole was actually standing up for the rights of the passengers. He was offered VIP treatment in an attempt to placate him, but he firmly rejected it.
“Airlines like Air Peace often resort to invoking the “45 minutes before departure” rule to cover up their mismanagement—especially when they overbook flights and bring in smaller aircraft than required. In this case, over 200 tickets were sold, yet the aircraft provided could only accommodate 160 passengers.
“Air Peace owes Senator Oshiomhole a public apology. Their press release was not only misleading but also typical of the airline’s pattern of behavior.
I documented everything and will make them public soon.”
A female passanger who also could not catch her flight, complained in a viral video how the airline officials demanded additional payment of what she called “100 and something thousand naira” before she could be allowed to board the next flight to Abuja.
The woman is seen in the video cuddling an infant who she said was ill and that she was rushing back to Abuja so that she could rush the baby to the hospital.
“I arrived at their counter at 6:06am only to be told that they have closed boarding on the flight. I asked them why they were clearing some other passengers for the same flight and they told me that they had already checked-in online the night before.
“I pleaded with them that my baby had been tooling and vomiting and that I needed to urgently get to Abuja and rush her to hospital but they ignored me. That was when they asked me to pay additional money above N100, 000 before I could be allowed on their next Abuja-bound flight.
“But when they delay flights for two, three hours who pays us the passengers? How can Nigeria go forward with things like this?,” she lamented.
Also, another female passenger in the video who missed the same flight, narrated her frequent unpleasant encounters with the airline.
The unidentified woman, donning an orange T-shirt, recalled a previous encounter where the airline’s scheduled flight sometime in April was delayed past midnight, leaving she and other passengers stranded.
She is heard in the video saying that she was forced to cancel her trip and had to seek a refund of the N161, 000 she paid for her ticket.
“They gave me a refund form, which I filled right there. But they didn’t refund my money until June. But they only refunded N105, 000 to me out of the N161, 000 that I paid for the ticket. They deducted N56, 000 for reasons that were not stated.” she said.
A screen display of the bank transfer she received from the airline indicated a refund of N105, 000 which was made on June 2, 2025.
Senator Oshiomhole was seen in the video listening to the complaints of the two women within the premises of the Lagos Airport.
Missed Flight Saga: Aggrieved Passangers Relive Experiences, Back Oshiomhole is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
