Lufthansa passengers stranded in Lagos

Lagos, Nigeria -- TRAVELLERS from Germany to Ghana on a Lufthansa flight last Saturday were stranded in Lagos for nearly seven hours owing to a fault on the aircraft.

When the plane landed in Lagos as a routine, passengers were assured of a short stay. However, when nearly an hour later the plane had not taken off, the pilot announced that there was a fault which they needed to rectify and that their officials in Frankfurt had directed that until the fault was repaired, the plane should not travel any further.

The Accra-bound passengers were asked to disembark and be in transit at the waiting room at the Murtala Airport until suitable arrangements were made.

The passengers were told that some of them will be transferred to any of the bigger airlines that passed over while the remainder would be accommodated until another scheduled Lufthansa flight to Accra arrived in Lagos the following day to convey them to Accra.

Most of the passengers expressed apprehension about leaving their luggage in Lagos or in the course of transferring to another plane and expressed their preparedness to sleep at the airport, rather than check into a hotel outside the airport.

After about four hours, the passengers were assured that the plane could make the journey to Accra after the repairs.

It was then that the Nigerian personnel of Lufthansa demonstrated a lack of sensitivity towards the stranded passengers by announcing a new flight arrangement whereby Nigerian passengers to Frankfurt were expected to board the plane, with the stranded passengers filling any available seats.

Justifiably, the passengers resisted that and for nearly an hour, there was so much confusion. At the end, the stranded passengers were allowed to board the plane first to occupy their allotted seats, but this was after they had been taken through another round of rigorous security check, although they did not step outside the waiting room.

Officials of Lufthansa in Nigeria, particularly Messrs B. Senaya, Y. Audu and A. S. Sanni, initially showed total lack of respect but were prevailed upon, after which the pilot apologised to the passengers for the inconvenience.