Many stranded in Sokoto as Aero cancels Lagos flights ‘without prior notification’

Dozens of passengers are currently stranded in Sokoto, capital of Sokoto state, after Aero Contractors abruptly cancelled all its flights to Lagos via Abuja from Sunday to Wednesday “due to operational reasons”.

Although the airline said it sent out notifications of cancellation to passengers, four passengers who were all scheduled to travel on Monday said they never got any cancellation notice.

Abubakar Skudu, who was scheduled to travel to Lagos on Tuesday complained bitterly, saying: “They did not text me anything about the cancellation of the flight. Now I’m at the airport, and there is no good response… even to attend to me well as a customer, no good response.

“They disorganised all my schedule… because I have to be in Lagos today. I work at the Seme Border; I finished my annual leave and I was supposed to resume tomorrow, but Aero disappointed me. I’m not happy with all they did to me.

“And there is no good response. Is it because we are Nigerians and they think we don’t have any action to take? Is that why they are doing this to us? This Aero Contractors, they do this all the time… cancelling flights without notifying the customer. Look at how they disappointed us.

“There is no flight in Sokoto, to Lagos. There’s no flight to Abuja. They cancelled all routines for Sokoto-Abuja-Lagos. I don’t know what to do. I want to see if I can go to Abuja by road, but it is late already. Maybe I’ll go to Abuja by road tomorrow, then pick a flight to Lagos.”

He lamented that aside the disruption to his plans, there was no chance anytime soon that passengers would get their refund anytime soon.

“They said they are waiting for bank to refund our money. But since they don’t have our account details and everything, how are we going to collect our money? They just used their utterances to make you upset,” he said.

Winifred Okafor, who was also supposed to travel with Aero from Sokoto to Lagos on Monday, did not receive any message of flight cancellation as well.

“I am just confused. Maybe I will go by road tomorrow because I have an appointment to meet up with in Abuja. I was trying to see if I could fly with Arik tomorrow but they said the flight is fully booked. I don’t even know whether they have a flight on Wednesday,” she said.

A fourth passenger whom Aero scheduled to travel from Sokoto to Lagos admitted that he received a notice of cancellation at 8:55pm on Saturday for a Sunday afternoon flight, but he said the notice was “absolutely useless” as it came at a time when it was too late for him to make alternate plans.”

When contacted, head of ground operations at Aero, who simply identified himself as “Mr. Chima”, he refrained from talking and then ended the call abruptly.

“I am not the Commercial Manager. Who gave you my number? I am not the Commercial Manager,” he said.