INCIDENTS of flights arriving at airports, without passengers’ luggage may sound strange to some travellers and also to a layman on the street, considering the fact that these passengers checked in with their luggage at the point of boarding the flight.

The latest of such incidents in Nigeria were the one involving the Turkish Airline and Egypt Air both occurred towards the end of last year, but whose reverberating effects and the chains of reactions they have generated are yet to be fully resolved.

For instance at the level of the government, the issue of some principal officers of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) suspended by the Federal Government, following the invasion of the tarmac of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport by aggrieved passengers of the Turkish Airline, because of the late arrival of their luggage, is yet to be resolved, just as the airline is currently facing a legal suit at the Consumer Protection Council.

But, to operators and regulators in the sector, incidents of delay in the arrival of luggage are not new and are not unethical as they occur in the air transport sector all over the world, largely as a result of overweight which could be due to the factors of luggage, passengers or fuel.

Among the regulators that spoke to The Guardian on this issue are the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and FAAN. The spokespersons of the two agencies, Sam Adurogboye and Yakubu Dati were of the common view that an airline could as a result of the problem of overweight and in line with safety rule, decide to reduce the weight of a flight bound aircraft by stopping some of the passengers from going with the flight, by reducing the fuel it is carrying or by leaving behind the luggage.

In separate interviews with The Guardian, Adurogboye and Dati, who made it clear they were not speaking for the affected airlines, observed that even though the airlines had the right to use their discretion as to which of the three components to reduce, they were however united in their view that the logical option available to the airlines in keeping with the safety rule, was to resort to the luggage factor.

According Adurogboye, no airline or operator could know what the eventual weight of a flight bound aircraft would be until it had checked in all its passengers, more so that the entire weight of the luggage that would accompany a flight is not known until after all the passengers had been checked in. In the same manner according to NCAA officer, no operator would want to reduce his or fuel capacity to give way to load, just as no passenger would accept to delay his or her flight to give way to luggage.

In his view the logical option left for the operators is to schedule the luggage for another flight which may come the same day or any other day.

Another source in the sector also said that it is very instructive for passengers to know that there is the different between flying passenger aircraft which has a very limited space for luggage and using cargo airline which is meant to carry luggage.

Throwing more light on the matter, Adurogboye said, “So a passenger did not arrive with his or her luggage to the airport is not out of place. If it happens, he should go the airline’s counter and make a report about the issue, he would be given a form to fill. And after which, he must demand for compensation, because there was loss on the part of the passenger”.

According to him, it is only when the passengers must have exhausted all the available channels that NCAA can intervene.

However, Adurogboye noted that it does not warrant the passenger to take the law into their hands or result to self-help, stressing that there are channels passengers need to follow to get it right. It happens all over the world. In every right, there is a responsibility, he added.

He stated that If an airline did not come with passengers luggage, they would have to compensate those passengers for that. In case of Turkish Airline, he said that when it happened NCAA investigated the issue and the airline was sanctioned for that.

And probably in line with the sanction, Turkish Airline has compensated all the affected passengers with cash award ranging from eight thousand Naira to eighty thousand Naira to take care of what they suffered during the period.

Adurogboye however, explained that, that Turkish flight was an inter-connecting flight carrying traders from China to Nigeria for their businesses, which means that it was a commercial flight, not a cargo flight.

“No airline in the world would tell you that your luggage will not arrive with you to your destination. So you do not know whose luggage that will not come with that flight. It is a common occurrence for the luggage of a passenger not to arrive with them”, he maintained.

He added: “And, also the type of aircraft, the airline has on the route, which is a smaller aircraft is the one that is in agreement with Nigeria. So it is not totally the fault of the airline, because of the aircraft they have registered in the country to use for their operations”.

He said the authority has to discuss with them to bring in a bigger aircraft that would carry the passengers’ luggage.