Air Peace Airlines, United Nigeria, and ValueJet have faulted the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) over its August 2026 report on flight delays and cancellations.

The airlines alleged that the agency’s data contained “fundamental inaccuracies” in the airlines’ operational figures and failed to properly identify the causes of delays recorded during the month.

Air Peace, in a statement yesterday by its Chief Operating Officer (COO), Oluwatoyin Olajide, said the NCAA report significantly underreported its August flight operations, thereby distorting the airline’s actual delay performance.

According to Olajide, while the NCAA report recorded 1,864 flights for the airline in August, the airline actually operated 2,564 flights.

The airline maintained that the omission of more than 700 flights from the NCAA’s data pool skewed its performance metrics and inflated the percentage of flights reported as delayed.

She also wondered why the NCAA began its monthly flight-delay reporting with August data rather than July, shortly after publishing its first- and second-quarter reports on July 31.

The statement added: “It is indeed worrisome that there is still no equivalent monthly data located for July, yet the NCAA published unusually granular August airline delay data only 13 days after month-end. Unbelievable!”

Olajide also queried why the NCAA report did not identify the causes of the delays attributed to individual airlines.

Earlier, officials from United Nigeria Airlines and ValueJet similarly faulted the NCAA’s August flight-disruption data, saying the figures failed to distinguish between controllable and uncontrollable delays.

The airlines spoke during the aviation day of the 23rd Akwaaba African Travel Market in Lagos, themed ‘Delayed and Cancelled Flights: The Rules and the Rights of Passengers — The Airline Perspective’.

Speaking at the event, the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of United Nigeria Airlines, Adedayo Olawuyi, said that many factors contributing to flight delays and cancellations are beyond airlines’ control.

Olawuyi identified airport congestion, inadequate infrastructure, technical challenges, and bad weather among the factors responsible for disruptions.

He said an aircraft could be delayed on the ground before take-off due to congestion, even when the airline is ready to operate the flight.

In his remarks, the CCO of ValueJet, Trevor Henry, also attributed flight disruptions to factors beyond airlines’ control.

“Delays and cancellations are usually caused by issues like presidential movements, weather, airport congestion at check-in, congestion in the boarding lounge due to security checks, and congestion at the boarding gate,” he said.