Air Peace has challenged the accuracy of flight disruption figures released by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for August 2026, saying the regulator significantly underreported the airline’s total number of flights.
The dispute followed an NCAA report which stated that Air Peace recorded 1,330 delayed flights out of 1,864 flights operated in August, representing a delay rate of about 71.4 per cent. The regulator’s report also showed that domestic airlines collectively operated 7,961 flights during the month, with 4,765 recorded as delayed.
Responding to the figures, Air Peace Chief Operating Officer, Oluwatoyin Olajide, said the airline actually operated 2,564 flights in August, meaning more than 700 flights were not included in the NCAA’s data.
According to the airline, the omission distorted its overall performance and resulted in an inflated calculation of its delay rate. Air Peace also questioned why the NCAA began publishing monthly disruption figures with August rather than July, following the release of its first- and second-quarter reports.
Air Peace further argued that the NCAA report did not adequately distinguish between delays caused by the airline and those resulting from circumstances outside its control.
The airline said its internal review found that only 391 delayed flights, representing about 15 per cent of its total delays for the month, were attributable to internal factors.
It said these internal issues were largely related to technical matters, including unscheduled aircraft maintenance and fuel-related challenges.
According to Air Peace, the majority of the disruptions were caused by external factors, including airport congestion, infrastructure problems, adverse weather, bird strikes, industrial action and damage to aircraft by ground-handling companies.
The airline specifically pointed to industrial action that began on August 11 and said its effects continued for more than two weeks, resulting in rescheduled and cancelled flights.
Air Peace also disclosed that one of its aircraft, identified as 5N-BYG, suffered significant damage following a bird strike in Abuja. The airline said repairs cost approximately US$1,800,000, while the aircraft remained grounded for more than a week.
The airline therefore called on the NCAA to review and audit its data-collection process to ensure future reports accurately reflect airlines’ operational volumes and identify the causes of flight disruptions.
The NCAA’s figures had earlier placed Air Peace among the airlines with the highest number of delayed flights in August. United Nigeria Airlines recorded 943 delays from 1,231 flights, while Enugu Air recorded 582 delays from 878 operations.
Air Peace said it remained committed to improving on-time performance and passenger service but stressed that airlines could not independently prevent disruptions arising from airport congestion, weather conditions, infrastructure limitations and other external factors.
The disagreement has now placed renewed attention on how flight-delay data is collected, classified and presented by Nigeria’s aviation regulator and how such figures should account for circumstances affecting airline operations.
