Air Peace has rejected a recent flight delay report published by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), describing the figures contained in the report as “inaccurate”.
In its August 2026 summary of domestic airline flight disruptions, the NCAA reported that Air Peace recorded 1,330 delayed flights out of 1,864 flights operated during the month. The authority did not provide details on the causes of the reported delays.
However, in a statement signed by its Chief Operating Officer, Oluwatoyin Olajide, Air Peace said the NCAA report contained significant inaccuracies in its operational data and failed to properly account for the factors responsible for the disruptions.
“The said data failed to reflect the reality of our operations, nor does it accurately contextualize the primary drivers of the operational disruptions experienced during the said month.
“First and foremost, the NCAA report vastly underreported our total flight volume. Air Peace operated a total of 2,564 flights in August 2026, as opposed to the 1,864 flights stated in the NCAA report. By omitting over 700 fully operational flights from the data pool, the NCAA’s calculations skew our actual performance metrics and artificially inflate the reported delay percentages. Most worrisome is: Why did the NCAA start the monthly series with August rather than July, immediately following the publication of Q1 and Q2 on 31st of July?
“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!”
The airline also questioned the timing of the NCAA report, arguing that it was released too early and failed to take into account industrial action that disrupted aviation operations during August.
“It is reasonable to suggest that the early release of the August publication should have been accompanied by disclosure that the month contained an extraordinary aviation-sector industrial disruption which significantly affected the airline’s operations.
“The effect of the August 11th instigated Union disruptions of our operations lingered for over 14 days, leading to rescheduling, avoidable delays and cancellation of flights.
“Why was this report published rapidly without identifying the causes of the delays attributed to individual airlines instead of publishing wrong figures that could tarnish the reputation of the airline despite prevailing operational challenges?
“Furthermore, the characterization of these delays failed to differentiate between internal operational issues and severe systemic challenges that are completely outside the airline’s control.”
Air Peace said its internal review of its August 2026 flight performance showed that only 391 flights, representing 15% of the delays recorded during the month, were linked to internal factors.
The airline maintained that the remaining delays were caused by external circumstances, which it said could be verified through available data.
“From the above, only 391 flights should be attributed to Air Peace, which represents 15% of the delays in that month.”
According to the airline, the internal factors included technical problems, unscheduled aircraft maintenance and fuel-related issues.
It said external disruptions included airport congestion and traffic, bird strikes, unexpected failures of airport facilities, adverse weather conditions and unexpected picketing of the airline by aviation union members.
Air Peace also identified aircraft damage caused by a ground-handling company among the external factors contributing to flight disruptions.
“Again, the narrative that Air Peace is primarily responsible for these delays is completely false. The majority of the delays experienced by our passengers were driven by external factors and completely outside of our control.
“In stark contrast, delays caused by internal operational factors accounted for just 15% of the total delays experienced during the month of August.
“We have restrained ourselves from making these facts public before now, but we have now been pushed beyond acceptable limits, hence the need to go public and state the facts the way they are.”
The airline said it had continued to invest significantly in its fleet, crew availability, training and maintenance procedures.
“We remain fully committed to safety, on-time performance and passenger satisfaction; however, an airline cannot safely or logistically bypass severe airport congestion/traffic, inadequate airport infrastructure, sunset restrictions or adverse weather conditions.
“We will continue to optimize our internal processes to mitigate against all the internal delay drivers.”
Air Peace called on the NCAA to review and audit its data collection procedures to ensure that future reports accurately capture airline operations, delay figures and the causes of disruptions within Nigeria’s aviation sector.