The Chief Executive Officer of Medview Airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole has assured about105 passengers who flew from London to Lagos last week without their checked-in luggage that all the bags would be delivered by the end of this weekend.
Bankole gave the assurance Thursday when he addressed aggrieved passengers at the airline’s head office in Lagos.
He explained that the bags were dropped by the pilot in command of the flight in order to have appropriate weight for the aircraft to ensure safe flight operation.
Bankole however noted that the reason the need to reduce the luggage arose because many of the passengers instead of checking in the airline’s approved maximum bags of 27 KG they decided to check in 34KG bags, insisting that that was what was written on the ticket, thus creating a situation for some of the bags to be removed from the flight.
He apologized to the passengers and said that the airline has taken full responsibility of the infringement and assured its customers that similar incident must be averted in future.
“We didn’t carry cargo. So the bags that were short landed are all passengers bags. However, we insisted that the maximum weight of bags we would carry for each passenger was 27KG, but most of the passengers defied this rule and brought in 34KG, thus necessitating the need to reduce the weight of the aircraft by removing the bags in order to fly safely to Lagos.
“You can verify this that all the passengers we have airlifted since December 4, 2016, about 10, 000 of them, received their luggage on arrival, except this current incident and we apologise to all our esteemed passengers. We want to let your know that whatever success we record is made possible by you, our passengers,” Bankole said.
He also observed that UK based airlines were exploiting Nigerian passengers with outrageous fares until Nigerian airlines started operating to London, adding that Nigerian airlines allow passengers with more excess luggage, while foreign carriers extract huge charges for them.
The Medview CEO reiterated that the action to offload the luggage was made for safety reasons.
“The issue happened at departure. The passengers were confident the luggage would arrive Lagos. Pilot offloaded some baggage and that was why some of the bags did not come. The bags were offloaded just for safety. It was the pilot’s decision that the baggage should be offloaded. The baggage would be moved tomorrow morning (today) and Saturday,” the Medview CEO said.
He added that some of the passengers on arrival without their check in bags were assisted to get to their final destination by the airline, while the others were lodged in hotels.
Recently the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) penalised Arik Air N6 million in addition to paying each passenger $150 for short landing their luggage.
THISDAY
