Air Peace slammed Saudi authorities on Wednesday for cancelling visas for 264 people carried by the firm from Nigeria due to incorrect information.
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia defended the visa cancellation in a statement issued earlier today, claiming that the passengers did not comply with the Arab nation’s standards and regulations.
However, Air Peace in a statement published on the company’s X (formerly Twitter) and signed by the airline’s chief operating officer Oluwatoyin Olajide, said that the visa cancellation was not the fault of the company.
According to Air Peace, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a visa confirmation platform that was used to verify the passengers’ visas before they were allowed to check in for the flight.The statement read, “The visas of all passengers on the said flight to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia were checked and verified through the requisite procedures and were vetted to be valid before departure,” Air Peace said.
“The visas were verified using the visa confirmation platform provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saudi Arabia which confirmed the validity of each passenger visa before passengers were allowed to check-in for the flight.
“All the visas of the 264 passengers were duly verified, confirmed, and accepted as authentic for the trip through the visa portal provided by the Saudi Arabia authorities, if not, no passengers would have been able to depart from Nigeria.
“This is just one of two steps required before a passenger is accepted on the flight to Saudi Arabia. The next step is the use of the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). We equally used this system to determine the admissibility or otherwise of each passenger on that flight.”
Air Peace stated that the names of the passengers were sent to Saudi Arabia’s national travel security center before the company’s flight took off from Nigeria.
PRESS STATEMENT: 15-11-2023#BetterDealWithAirPeace pic.twitter.com/no3YiHiftv
— Air Peace (@flyairpeace) November 15, 2023