Air France leaves hundreds of Nigerian passengers stranded at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris

HUNDREDS of Nigerian passengers flying from and to Lagos and Abuja have been left stranded at the Charles De Gaulle International Airport in Paris since Wednesday due to logistical problems with Air France.

 

Many of the passengers have had to sleep at the airport for a day and two owing to what the management of the airline claimed was the malfunctioning of their planes and a lack of aviation fuel. Some of the passengers had left Lagos and Abuja for various destinations while many were returning to Lagos from various countries en route the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

 

Air France, which said their planes could not fly, was scrambling for hardly available seats in other airlines to fly the passengers to their destinations. Many of the passengers, who in their bookings had about three to five hours layover in Paris were left stranded spending 17 to 48 hours at the airport.

 

Some, who were lucky to get the seats in the allied airlines were rerouted and had to spend additional several hours to get to their destinations albeit several inconveniences. Many of the passengers complained of ill-treatment and an alleged flouting of standard aviation regulatory operations by the airline.

 

Two of the passengers, Mrs Olagunju Ojo and Mrs Afolake Arikewuyo, who were in their late 70s said they left the US for Lagos en route Paris on Tuesday only to be left stranded at the airport. The women, who could barely speak English and do not understand French, were in the long queue unassisted while struggling to get their cancelled flight to Lagos re-routed.

 

They said they had arrived the airport for over 12 hours only to be told that their flight to Lagos had been cancelled and there was no alternative arrangement for the day. Mrs Ojo, who spoke in Yoruba language, said she could not reach the members of her family to inform them about what had happened.

 

She said: “We cannot go to Lagos today and there is no Schengen visa to take us outside the airport to sleep. They said we will sleep at the airport here and there is no way to communicate with my people waiting for me at the airport at home and those I left in the US.”

 

Another passenger, Mrs Theresa Fashida, also an elderly woman, said she left Ireland for Lagos en route Paris and had been at the airport for eight hours struggling to see how her cancelled flight could be rerouted. She said the airline later succeeded in rerouting her flight through Nairobi, Kenya from where she would travel to Lagos with Kenyan Airways the following day.

 

Some other Lagos bound passengers were rerouted to South Africa to fly with South Africa Air from Johannesburg. Also, some of the passengers, who left Lagos for Washington DC, were also left stranded at the Paris airport.

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