By Oladele Eniola

The Federal Competition, Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Sunday said that complaints on Nigeria’s Aviation Industry ranked third in the list of those it received in 2022.

Dr Adams Abdullahu, Director of Operations, FCCPC, said this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

Abdullahu said that complaints on various incidents in the sector account for 674 of the 13,580 received by the commission in 2022.

He said that the aviation sector complaints came behind those on financial services  — 5,709, and the Electricity and Power sector  — 3,293.

The director said that complaints received about the aviation sector were on delays, cancellations, pilfered baggage, lost baggage and airport experience.

He said complaints were also received on the general condition of the terminals, cooling system and discourteous service, among others.

Abdullahi said that airlines did not communicate properly with their customers.

”Most times, if you explain to passengers what the problem is, they can understand, but operators don’t tell public what is actually going on with their operations.

“You buy a ticket, sit in the airport for unending hours, you don’t even get any sort of information on the status of your flight and that really angers passengers.

“If you usually carry them along and tell them, these are the challenges that you are facing, it brings down the tempers and that is always what we encourage our service providers to do and they should do that also”

The Operations Director noted that the commission was working on a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and all sectors of consumer protection to address the lapses in the sector.

Meanwhile, he listed other sectors on which fewer complaints received and the numbers.

They include Telecommunications, with 605;  E-commerce with 508; Electrical electronics with 415; Food and Beverages with 222; Satellite and Cable services with 122.

Also listed are, Postal and Courier service with 71; Road transport with 69; Land and Construction with 65; Real estate with 63; Health services with 52: Education with 29, among others.

He said that 3,327 complaints were resolved out of the total number of complaints that that were received by the commission.

“In the corresponding year, which was 2021, the commission received 10,178 complaints and resolved 1,990

“Financial services also topped the list with 2,736 complaints followed by electricity/power with 3043, telecommunications with 510, Aviation with 459 and Electrical/Electronic with 502,” he said. (NAN)

Edited by Oluwole Sogunle