Air Peace Challenges NCAA August Delay Figures, Says External Disruptions Accounted for Majority of Delays

Air Peace has challenged the accuracy of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority’s (NCAA) August 2026 flight disruption report, insisting that the figures published by the regulator failed to capture the airline’s actual operational volume and did not adequately distinguish between delays caused by the carrier and those arising from external factors.

The airline said its records showed that it operated 2,564 flights during August 2026, compared with 1,864 flights contained in the NCAA report, a difference of 700 flights.

According to Air Peace, the exclusion of more than 700 flights from the NCAA’s data significantly affected the calculation of its performance and created an inaccurate impression of the extent of delays attributable to the airline.

The airline’s Chief Operating Officer, Oluwatoyin Olajide, who signed the statement, said Air Peace was therefore compelled to publicly challenge what it described as fundamental discrepancies in the regulator’s report.

“Air Peace Management strongly refutes the recent flight disruption report published by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for August 2026. The report contains fundamental data inaccuracies regarding our operational volume and mischaracterises the root causes of flight delays, unfairly placing the blame on the airline,” the statement said.

Air Peace said the NCAA figures did not reflect the reality of its operations during the month, particularly given the extraordinary circumstances that affected the aviation industry in August.

The carrier also questioned the decision by the NCAA to begin its monthly reporting with August, rather than July, after the publication of its first and second-quarter reports on July 31.

“It is indeed worrisome that there is still no equivalent monthly data located for July, yet the NCAA published unusually granular August airline delay data only 13 days after month-end,” Air Peace said.

The airline further questioned why the August report was published without, in its view, sufficient context on the industrial action that disrupted its operations from August 11 and whose effects it said continued for more than two weeks.

Air Peace said the disruption caused by aviation unions’ picketing of its operations on August 11 had consequences extending well beyond the period during which the industrial action took place.

According to the airline, the action resulted in flight cancellations and rescheduling, while the resulting backlog affected subsequent aircraft rotations and contributed to delays.

The carrier said the unusual circumstances surrounding August should have been reflected in the NCAA’s assessment of its operational performance.

“It is reasonable to suggest that the early release of the August publication should have been accompanied by disclosure that the month contained an extraordinary aviation-sector industrial disruption which significantly affected the airline’s operations,” it said.

Air Peace argued that publishing delay statistics without identifying the circumstances behind the disruptions could give the public an incomplete picture of airline performance.

“Why was this report published rapidly without identifying the causes of the delays attributed to individual airlines instead of publishing wrong figures that could tarnish the reputation of the airline despite prevailing operational challenges?” the carrier asked.

The industrial dispute had already caused significant disruption to domestic air travel in August, with aviation unions shutting down or restricting access to some airline operations as part of their disagreement with Air Peace.

Air Peace maintained that the disruption was beyond its control and should therefore be considered when assessing its August operational performance.

At the centre of Air Peace’s rebuttal is its claim that most of its August delays were not caused by failures within the airline.

The carrier said its internal review showed that 391 flights were delayed because of internal operational factors, which it said represented approximately 15 per cent of the delays recorded during the month. It said the remaining delays resulted from factors outside its direct control.

“An internal review of our August 2026 flight data performance analysis reveals that 391 flights, which is only 15% of the delays experienced during the month of August, were caused by internal factors,” the airline said. “From the above, only 391 flights should be attributed to Air Peace, which represents 15% of the delays in that month.”

Air Peace said the internally generated delays were mainly associated with technical issues requiring unscheduled maintenance and fuel-related challenges.

It acknowledged responsibility for addressing those factors and said it was continuously working to minimise the impact of issues within its control.

However, it disputed the broader attribution of delays to the airline, saying the operational environment in which Nigerian carriers operate had a major bearing on schedule reliability.

The airline identified airport congestion and traffic as its largest external source of disruption during the month.

According to Air Peace, heavy congestion on airport tarmacs and in surrounding air traffic operations accounted for more than 51 per cent of its externally caused delays.

It said aircraft were sometimes required to remain on the ground or enter holding patterns because of limitations in airport and operational capacity.

“Aircraft were frequently held on the ground or in holding patterns due to infrastructure capacity limits,” the carrier said.

Air Peace argued that such delays could subsequently affect several other flights because an aircraft arriving late at one airport may not be able to depart on time for its next destination.

The airline said this created a chain reaction across its network, particularly in an environment where aircraft operate multiple sectors each day.

The airline also pointed to a bird strike involving one of its aircraft as an example of an external safety-related event that could have significant consequences for flight schedules.

According to Air Peace, aircraft 5N-BYG was struck by a bird in Abuja, damaging its inlet cowl beyond acceptable limits.

The carrier said the damage required the aircraft to be removed from service until the affected component was replaced.

It estimated the repair cost at US$1.8 million and said the aircraft remained out of operation for more than a week.

Air Peace said the incident had a considerable effect on its schedule because the aircraft typically operated a minimum of eight sectors daily and transported about 1,000 passengers.

“This is an aircraft that operates a minimum of eight sectors a day, airlifting about 1,000 passengers. Unfortunately, the aircraft was removed from flight operations for more than a week, resulting in huge disruptions, and only became serviceable after the inlet cowl was replaced,” it said.

The airline said the resulting effect on its network illustrated why flight disruption statistics should include the specific causes of delays rather than simply attributing all delays recorded against an airline to the carrier.

Air Peace also listed adverse weather among the external factors that affected its August schedule. It said the rainy season created conditions that required flight crews to observe safety procedures, including holding and diversions.

According to the airline, a single diversion could add almost three hours to a flight’s journey and could subsequently affect the operation of the aircraft on other sectors.

“One flight diversion could result in almost three hours’ delay. How is the consequential delay Air Peace’s fault?” the airline asked.

It said airlines were still expected to assist affected passengers despite the fact that weather-related disruptions were outside their control.

Air Peace said it provided assistance to passengers, including hotel accommodation, in cases where disruptions arose from external events.

The carrier also identified deficiencies and unexpected breakdowns in airport facilities as another source of operational disruption.

It said inadequate infrastructure affected boarding and departure processes and contributed to delays that could subsequently spread across flight schedules.

Another factor identified by Air Peace was damage caused to one of its aircraft by a ground-handling company. The airline said the aircraft was subsequently removed from active operations for more than 14 days.

It argued that the prolonged absence of the aircraft affected its ability to maintain scheduled rotations and contributed to further disruption.

Air Peace said these incidents, when combined with congestion, weather, airport infrastructure limitations and the industrial action, created a particularly difficult operating environment during August.

Responding to the broader question of its operational performance, Air Peace said it had invested significantly in its fleet, crew availability, training and maintenance systems.

The airline said such investments were designed to support safe and reliable operations, while acknowledging that internal operational challenges could still occur.

It said it remained committed to improving its processes and reducing delays arising from factors within its control.

“Air Peace has heavily invested in its fleet, crew availability, continuous high-standard training and maintenance protocols,” the airline said. “We remain fully committed to safety, on-time performance and passenger satisfaction; however, an airline cannot safely or logistically bypass severe airport congestion/traffic, inadequate airport infrastructure, sunset restrictions or adverse weather conditions.”

The carrier said it would continue to optimise its internal processes to address technical, fuel and other factors that contributed to delays.

Air Peace said its decision to publicly challenge the NCAA report followed what it described as growing concerns over the presentation of airline performance data.

The airline said it had previously refrained from making the details public but believed the discrepancies in the August report had become serious enough to warrant a response.

“We have restrained ourselves from making these facts public before now, but we have now been pushed beyond acceptable limits, hence the need to go public and state the facts the way they are,” it said.

The carrier consequently called on the NCAA to review its data collection and reporting processes. It urged the regulator to ensure that future reports accurately capture the number of flights operated by each airline and provide sufficient information on the causes of delays.

“We respectfully urge the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority to review and audit its data collection methods to ensure future reports accurately reflect the correct data and delay causal factors/operational environment of the Nigerian aviation sector,” Air Peace said.

The disagreement highlights a broader issue in the interpretation of airline punctuality statistics in Nigeria: whether a delay should be assessed solely against the carrier operating the affected flight or whether performance reports should also identify the underlying cause, including airport congestion, air traffic restrictions, weather, infrastructure failures, industrial action and third-party incidents.

For Air Peace, the distinction is critical to understanding its August performance. While the NCAA’s published figures assessed the airline using the number of operations and delays recorded in its dataset, Air Peace is disputing the underlying flight count and says its own analysis shows that only 391 delays were caused by factors within its control.

The two sets of figures have therefore produced substantially different interpretations of the airline’s August operational performance, with Air Peace calling for an audit and reconciliation of the data used by the regulator.