At least, 44,712 luggage were declared missing among 29 local and international airlines that operated within and into the nations airports last year, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has said.In a report, Air France led the pack with 6,175 missing luggage on the international scene. Air Peace led the other eight indigenous carriers on the domestic scene with 66 missing baggage within the period under review.While 41,498 of the missing luggage were retrieved by their owners, the others could not.A further breakdown of the missing luggage indicated that on the international scene, apart from Air France with the 6,175 missing luggage, other airlines involved in missing luggage were KLM with 5,088, African World Airlines, 308; Air Cote dIvoire, 670; Air Namibia, 221; Arik Air, 172; Asky, 1,167; British Airways; 4,273, Cam Air-Co; 109; Cronos Air; one, Delta Air Lines; 3,473, Egypt Air; 2,448, Emirates; 1,725, Ethiopian Air; 1,946, Etihad; 472, Kenya; 1,152 and Lufthansa with 3,750 missing luggage.Others were Mediana; 218, Med-View; 25, Middle East; eight, Mid Africa; 112, Qatar Airways; 1,238, Royal Air Maroc; 2,624, RwandAir; 1,234, South African Airways; 762, Turkish Air; 4,348 and Virgin Atlantic had 1,166 missing luggage within the period.On the local scene out of the eight local airlines that operated within the period under review, seven out of them except Azman Air had issues of missing baggage in 2018.According to the report, Air Peace had 66 missing luggage with 63 of them recovered within the period. Arik Air recorded 59 missing luggage with 55 of them recovered.Also, Dana Air had 34 of its passengers missing with 32 recovered between January and last December, Aero Contractors had six missing luggage with all of them recovered within the period.Besides, Max Air recorded four missing luggage with all of them recovered. Med-View and Overland Airways also had two luggage of their passengers missing within the period, but were later recovered.In all, last year, 173 luggage were declared missing, but 164 of them were recovered with nine not returned to their owners, according to the report.The report further revealed that last year, there were at least 15,645 flights operated on international routes, another 59,818 flights were operated on the domestic routes.Besides, the report indicated that last year, no fewer than 734 flights were cancelled by airlines on international and local routes. Of these figures, 190 were cancelled on the international scene, and 544 occurred within the local airlines.In all, there were 85 air returns last year; 25 among international carriers and 60 among the local airlines.According to NCAA, the airlines recorded 70 overbookings between January and December, last year with international airlines recording 11; 59 of such occurred among the eight local carriers.The report further stated that air travellers on local and international scenes experienced 92 luggage pilfering across the airports with 63 of such recorded on the international scene and the others on the local scene.The regulatory agencys report emphasised that in the past year, all the international airports in the country recorded a total 1,994,099 in-bound passengers and 2,084,980 out-bound passengers, bringing the number of international passengers to 4,079,079.On the local scene, there were 10,092,643 were in-bound and out-bound passengers. Of these numbers, 5,033,669 were in-bound passengers, and the others out-bound passengers.The record showed that all the airports recorded 14,171,722 passengers in the past year.NCAA stated that its Consumer Protection Directorate (CPD) received 161 complaints from air travellers last year with 99 of such complaints resolved by the directorate.The breakdown indicated that the CPD received 74 complaints on the international scene and resolved 36. Of the 87 complaints received from the local airlines, 63 were resolved.
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