Passengers were again left stranded on Saturday at the Ilorin International Airport as poor weather conditions forced airline operators to cancel scheduled flights.
Recalled that the three commercial airlines, Arik Air, Overland Airways and Medview Airline, operating on the Abuja and Lagos routes via Ilorin airport have not been keeping to their schedules for some days as a result of the bad weather within the last one week.
Medview specifically cancelled its Saturday schedule as a result of the poor weather condition. Also the Overland morning schedule from Lagos to Ilorin landed the airport in the afternoon.
Pilot Aviation on the spot assessment saw passengers loitering around the airport premises.
However, announcement to that effect was not made by the airlines, which caused anxiety among the passengers.
Some of the passengers who spoke to Pilot Aviation complained that the airliners did not make announcement of the flights cancellation.
“Although it is for our safety that the flight were cancelled because of the bad weather, which could make visibility poor, but the airlines did not deem it fit to make formal announcement like it is done in advanced countries, ” one of them had lamented to our reporter.
Speaking on the development, the Airspace Manager of the airport, Engr. Rotimi Ayeni said the airlines were duly informed of the weather condition.
“We have observed the bad condition of the weather since morning and we have duly informed the airliners about it. Our job as Nigeria Airspace Management Agency is to ensure safety of the airlines at the airport when taking off and landing.
” It is unfortunate but safety is our priority and our air traffic controllers are on ground in collaboration with NiMet monitoring the situation. The weather is not safe for aircraft to land.
Ayeni urged the passengers to show understanding as safety of the aviation sector lies on all the stakeholders.
