Aero Online Booking Issues

On Sunday, 30 May, the last Aero Contractors flight to Abuja was delayed for over an hour because of an altercation on board. After check in formalities have been concluded, it turned out that five passengers did not have seats; the aircraft had more passengers than it could carry legitimately.

The five refused to disembark, insisting that they had to get Abuja, having paid fully for their tickets and after being checked in formally. The argument went on until a man volunteered to get down, saying he could make his journey the next day. Gradually, four others disembarked, and the five protesters were airlifted to Abuja.

Though Aero rebooked the passengers for the next flight, the first on Monday morning and also gave free one way tickets to them, usable within a year, and also paid the taxi fare back home for the first passenger who volunteered to get down, the incident again highlighted the problems besetting the airline.

Increasingly, travellers are getting piqued with the manner in which Aero Contractors attends to customers who booked their tickets online, just as the experience raises the possibility of a faulty computer system for its online booking.

Embarrassing acts

Describing the act as “inhumane”, some of them disclosed that passengers who book online are treated poorly, compared to those who purchase their tickets at the ticketing and reservation stands of the airline.

“After joining their (Aero) Owerri to Lagos flight, I could not travel back to Owerri with my return ticket on their flight when I got to the airport. I was told that the aircraft was filled and my seat has been taken over by another passenger, who I guess, paid cash for his ticket,” said a woman who gave her name as Nkechi.

Nkechi, who admitted that she benefitted from the low online fare of the airline when coming to Lagos from Owerri, however, argued that the carrier should make necessary provisions for whatever seat they sell to travellers, “whether online customers or not.”

“It is inhumane to stop one from travelling when he or she has made arrangements of leaving that day,” she said. “They should know the number of passengers who booked online and those who purchased tickets directly at the airport for any aircraft, so as to stop embarrassing people by telling them that they cannot fly because the aircraft is filled.”

Another traveller, who prefers anonymity, disclosed that on getting to the airport at the stipulated minutes before the departure of her flight, she was denied access to the aircraft on the grounds that her seat has being sold out to another customer, adding that she booked online.

“I couldn’t fly for they told me that my seat has been sold out,” she said. “I was also told to pay an extra amount for the regular seat in order to be able to travel, can you imagine this?” The passenger, who was on her way to Calabar, the Cross River State capital from Lagos, maintained that she followed all requisite procedures provided by Aero on its website directing passengers on how to book and when to arrive the airport for their flights, yet she was unable to fly.

“I arrived at the airport 30 minutes before departure, and I did pay for the ticket with my ATM card as they said online, but I cannot understand why they had to sell my seat to another person,” she said.

Aero Contractors has been at the forefront in online sale of promotional low cost tickets, ranging from N3, 000 to N7, 000 for one-way flights, which has created a surge in their ticket sales.

However, series of calls and text messages to Simon Tumba, the media consultant for the airline, did not yield positive response, as he promised to react to the complaints of the aggrieved customers but did not do so for two days.

Culled from Next...