Some Nigerians have been left frustrated after they discovered that their flight, RwandAir (the national carrier of Rwanda), dumped their luggage in Dubai instead of Nigeria, their destination.
The Nigerian passengers boarded the RwandAir flight from the United Arab Emirates’ region with the mindset that their luggage had been loaded. However, when the flight touched down in Lagos, they couldn’t find their luggage and no official of the airline was present to explain the situation. The RwandAir WB 305 had moved from Dubai to Kigali (Rwanda) before another connecting flight WB 202 left for Lagos.
According to Punch, the luggage of the passengers had been checked and tagged before the flight took off without any issue. The passengers were, however, left in shock when they disembarked. To worsen the situation, the company didn’t provide any explanation to the distressed passengers, as only the officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) were on ground to calm the situation.
The problem is more than luggage: According to some passengers, the missing bags wasn’t their only worry. Some of them said they had personal effects in the luggage.
“How can I get in now? The keys to my house are in one of the bags. This is very unfair and unfortunate. Things are usually like this when it comes to Nigeria,” a female passenger simply identified as Joyce said.
Another unnamed male passenger said, “I have two bags and neither of the two is here. My house key is in one of them because I never envisaged something like this would happen.”
[READ MORE: IATA raises alarm over excessive charges on Nigerian airlines, others]
Meanwhile, another lady passenger, whose keys were also in her luggage, said she’s not a Lagos resident and intended to travel to Port Harcourt.
Who is to blame? The Nigerian passengers discovered that their bags were missing when they disembarked from the RwandAir flight at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
The unnamed official of the FAAN, who attended to the Nigerian passengers, said Nigerian airport officials were not to be blamed. He told the passengers to direct their grievances to the Dubai officials and RwandAir as they were in charge of the luggage.
He said since the bags were loaded in Nigeria before the passengers left Nigeria for Dubai, the fault shouldn’t be placed on Nigerian officials.
“When you were going to Dubai, you got your luggage in Dubai; Nigerian officials loaded that. The ones you cannot get here now, officials in the United Arab Emirates loaded them, not Nigerian officials. So, you cannot blame Nigerians for that; blame the airline,” the official said.
Note: The missing luggage, according to one of FAAN officials, could arrive in Lagos on Friday afternoon.
