The incident was disclosed by the Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Micheal Achimugu on Friday.
Operations on an Air Peace flight were disrupted after a ground handler’s conveyor belt struck the aircraft while passengers were already on board, forcing an unscheduled deboarding and triggering delays across multiple routes.
The incident was disclosed by the Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Micheal Achimugu on Friday.
He explained that the conveyor belt hit the aircraft’s engine cover during ground operations, making it unsafe for the aircraft to proceed with its scheduled flights.
According to Achimugu, the affected aircraft had been programmed to operate nine sectors, meaning the incident immediately impacted all passengers booked on those services.
“All passengers waiting for its operations are automatically disrupted, and the airline will face backlash, refund issues, compensation, etc, for a damage that was not its fault,” he said, adding that the airline would also spend “large sums of foreign currency to fix” damage caused by third-party service providers.
He revealed that the aircraft involved was one of Air Peace’s newly acquired Embraer E2 jets and was “fully booked until January 15th, 2026.”
As a result, “all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation,” he stated.
Achimugu noted that despite incidents being caused by ground handlers or other service providers, airlines rarely disclose such details publicly. Instead, passengers are often told flights were delayed or cancelled for “technical/operational reasons.”
He said this practice leaves airlines bearing “the anger of justifiably aggravated passengers” as well as regulatory consequences under Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023.
The NCAA spokesperson recalled previous disruptions suffered by Air Peace through no fault of the airline. In one case, he said a bird strike cost the airline “over three million dollars to fix,” adding that it took “an entire month” for the manufacturer to send a replacement part described as an “engine cowling dent.”
He stressed that such recurring incidents underline the need for stricter regulation of ground handling services.
“We need to start naming and shaming poorly trained ground handling personnel whose inefficiency costs the airlines great reputational, financial, and technical damage,” Achimugu said.
He added that the NCAA was considering steps to “strengthen the regulations in a way that also heavily sanctions service providers” responsible for similar occurrences.
According to him, “airlines should not be held responsible for situations like this,” urging that passengers be informed “most honestly, about the reasons for disruptions caused by these unfortunate scenarios.”
Addressing affected travellers, Achimugu said, “In advance, I call for the understanding of passengers who were scheduled to fly this aircraft.”
He disclosed that while Air Peace maintains standby aircraft, “the airline has two (which is commendable), but those two have been deployed to cover two other similar situations.”
Even if available, he noted that the backup aircraft “have sitting capacities less than the damaged E2.”
He described such conveyor belt incidents as “behind-the-scene situations that make airlines seem culpable,” stressing the need for transparency.
“We must educate more, and ensure to unbundle the facts so that the industry does not continue to seem like a secret coven that swallows information behind layers of cover-ups,” he said.
Achimugu expressed sympathy with domestic operators, stating, “To Air Peace, and indeed all domestic operators, I empathize with you in moments like this.” He also referenced recent improvements in foreign exchange access, noting, “Thankfully, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ensured that access to forex is not longer as difficult as it used to be,” while acknowledging that this “does not mitigate the costs of repairs” or compensate for “lost time and possible profits.”
He concluded with an expression of optimism for the country’s aviation sector, saying, “May Nigeria succeed.”