A professor at the University of Lagos has accused Kenya Airways of negligence and unfair treatment after missing his scheduled flight from Nairobi to Lagos due to undisclosed departure details.
In a complaint letter by his legal representatives, Nojim Tairu & Co, the passenger, who asked not to be identified, alleged that he was left stranded overnight at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on 20 September 2024 with no assistance.
In a letter directed to the airline, a copy of which was made available to newsmen, the passenger disclosed that he booked a round-trip ticket covering Lagos-Nairobi-Johannesburg and back to Lagos via Nairobi.
When he arrived at the Nairobi airport for his return flight to Lagos, flight KQ534 with ticket no: 7065403324323, which was scheduled for 6.30 pm, no information was displayed at the departure gate, unlike other flights on the airport’s monitor.
He alleged that despite waiting for an announcement, the flight departed without him, leaving him stranded.
The passenger accused the airline of overbooking the flight and deliberately withholding the gate information to avoid liability.
He lamented that he was compelled by the airline to pay $671 to board another flight from Nairobi to Lagos the following day.
He said, ‘In all my 20 years of travelling experience, I have never missed my connecting flights. When you miss a flight you are merely fined, not asked to purchase a new one-way ticket like Kenya Airways did to me’.
The letter reads partly: ‘Our client was left in the lurch, stranded and with no one to attend to his plight in a foreign land.
‘He was constrained by his peculiar health status and requisite strict medication regime, to purchase medicants food, drinks, and other victuals at the airport to forestall the worsening of his deteriorating health which was caused by your negligent handling of the flight with the attendant stress and trauma thereof.
‘Between the originally scheduled departure date of 20 September 2024 and the actual departure, the following day, our client was not given any accomodation or refreshment to assuage his harrowing experience and condition’.
The passenger demanded $3,979.107 as compensation for the cost of the missed flight, incurred expenses, and an additional N500,000 as legal fees.
He threatened to sue the airline if it failed to meet his demands within 14 days.
A Nigerian passenger, Omisore G. in a viral video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the Special Adviser to the Minister of Aviation, Tunde Moshood, on Monday expressed frustration over alleged mistreatment of herself and other Nigerian passengers by Kenya Airways.
Following the incident, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) summoned Kenya Airways’ acting station manager in Lagos for alleged unprofessional conduct and violations of aviation regulations.
The Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Michael Achimugu, emphasised the long history of mistreatment Nigerian passengers, stressing that the airline must bear responsibility for the incident and answer for its actions.
When contacted, a staff of the Kenya Airways’ Lagos office, who identified herself only as Elizabeth, said the airline was not aware of the incident.
Similarly, the Director of Public Affairs of the Federal Airport Authority, Obiageli Orah, said ‘No such complaint has come to us yet’.
