TheCable

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has said domestic airlines operating in the country recorded 7,722 cases of delayed flights in the third quarter of 2016.

This is contained in a document issued by the NCAA’s Consumer Protection Department which was obtained on Monday by NAN in Lagos.

The document indicated that 13,097 flights were operated by eight domestic airlines during the period under review, while 253 flights were cancelled.

It said the airlines in operation were Aero Contractors, Arik Air, Air Peace, Azman Air, Dana Air, First Nation, Med-View and Overland.

Arik, which operated 4,882 flights, topped the chart of delayed and cancelled flights with 2,824 and 128 respectively.

This was closely followed by Air Peace, which recorded 1,383 delayed flights and 16 cancellations out of its 2,754 flight operations.

Dana Air operated 1,665 flights with 1,160 incidences of delayed flights and one cancellation.

The airlines had attributed the delays and cancellations to the lingering scarcity of aviation fuel in the country.

However, in a recent meeting with airline operators, Hadi Sirika, the minister of state, aviation, assured them that the government was working assiduously to end the scarcity of the product.

As part of the move, Sirika also held a meeting with oil marketers who informed him of their challenges regarding the importation, supply and distribution of aviation fuel to the airlines.