The two prominent commercial airlines – Arik Air and Overland Airline, on Sunday cancelled flights at the llorin International Airport, leaving hundreds of passengers travelling to various domestic routes stranded, owing to their inabilities to get aviation fuel, popularly called Jet A1.
The two commercial airlines cancelled flights to various destinations across the country on Saturday and Sunday, as passengers left the airport angry.
It would be recalled that passengers travelling from the llorin Airport have always been subjected to delay in airlifting or cancellation of flights since the beginning of aviation fuel scarcity across the country, which accounts for huge loss for revenue on the part of airline operators in recent times.
The two airlines, which normally airlift passengers to Abuja, Lagos and other parts of the country from Ilorin Airport daily, abruptly announced the cancellations of Saturday and Sunday flights due to fuel scarcity, having delayed flights and passengers for hours.
Some of the affected passengers, who pleaded anonymity while speaking with BusinessDay at the airport on Sunday, condemned the flights’ cancellations, especially on Saturday and Sunday, just as they lamented that the cancellation had negatively affected their economic and social engagements at the various expected destinations.
The spokesman for the Arik Airline, Ola Adebanjo said the cancellation was caused by Jet A1 scarcity, but expressed hope that the situation would get better in the nearest future.
Meanwhile, the airport terminal building that always receives large number of people travelling and arriving, was virtually empty on Sunday, as many passengers had left the airport in annoyance.
