Prince Isa Bayero, cousin of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, has given Air Peace airline a 3 days ultimatum to offer an apology to the Emir of Kano and by extension the Kano Emirate for disrespecting the Emir by causing a delay to his flight.
Isa Bayero had earlier written a petition to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), praying the aviation authority to sanction Air Peace for being disrespectful to the Emir and his royal entourage.
Air Peace in their defense stated that they never disrespected the revered Emir and had no intention of doing that and that they only acted in good faith by not delaying the flight just to wait for the emir and his people and to save the emir’s majestic name from ridicule from other customers already on board.
In the words of Prince Isa Bayero who doubles as a cousin to the emir and the emir’s chief protocol office while issuing the 3 days ultimatum:
“I wrote to the DG NCAA, to complain but if someone claimed my statement is inciting, well, they are entitled to their opinion. But come to think of it, inciting who? Kano people not to fly Air Peace anymore because the airline insulted their emir and refused to apologise? That I have no regret if anybody claims or interprets my complaint that way”.
He said the airline delayed their Banjul to Lagos flight for over an hour and should as a compensation at least delay the Lagos to Kano flight for 30 mins for the emir and his entourage to be able to catch up with Lagos to Kano flight but the airline couldn’t wait for them.
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Come to think of it, Air Peace delays, reschedules and sometimes outrightly cancels flights with no just cause, no remorse and apology to the customers or sometimes no explanation and when they do explain, their reasons are always flimsy and does not justify the action.
If you are a constant flyer of the Nigerian airlines then you can fully appreciate the anger and the reason for the outburst of Prince Isa Bayero. Flights are delayed for hours for no just cause, remorse or apologies from the airline. Air Peace is the number one champion in delaying flights. Who knows how many times they have previously delayed the flight of the emir before this incident which made the prince feel the Emir is entitled for at least 30 mins for the emir for just once for the emir to catch up.
Flights are always delayed for incessant and unnecessary reasons, so delaying the flight for at least 30 mins for the revered first class emir and his entourage to catch up won’t cause any harm.
Enough of the tribalistic twist, being a king or a traditional ruler; one of the honors and privileges attached to it is that protocols are suspended for your sake; governmental protocols and societal protocols are bent for you, it’s an honor to your royal office and that’s how the African society have accepted it to be.
If a mere flight cannot be delayed for a king (after wasting the emir’s one hour in the prior flight which is the reason the emir is needing 30 mins to catch up) then Air Peace really owes the king apologies. I’m quite sure that if it’s a state Governor or a federal officer holder that demanded the delay, Air Peace will definitely delay the flight for the fear of governmental sanctions but since the king has no government power to sanction the airline they feel they could just zoom off.
Again, Air Peace is a business and in business, customers are always right so if Air Peace is really towing this line of media trial with the emir’s aide then Air Peace’s business principle really need to be questioned and this will only end badly for the airline as they will definitely lose customers and flyers for not just disrespecting the emir but also engaging in this kind of bad publicity.
The least the airline can do is to step down from their ego, treat the airline as a business with the business principle that customers’ are always right and tender an apology to the emir as a highly respected customer as the emir’s aide is demanding.
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