Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
MORE facts emerged later this evening as aggrieved passengers whose baggage were left over at Gatwick, London had the opportunity to bear their grievances to the management of Medview Airline who have assured them that all outstanding baggage issue will arrive on or before Tuesday.
This morning Nigerianflightdeck.com reported that the baggage had arrived only to be told later by the Medview management that not all the passengers got all their luggage as some were still in the united kingdom.
Explaining the situation, Managing Director of Medview Airlines, Alhaji Muneer Bankole who spoke to the aggrieved passengers said that as at 1am this morning he got a call stating that all the leftover baggage were loaded and ready for shipping back to the country, only for him to be told that due to weight and safety, the captain ordered some baggage removed.
Bankole however assured,” On Tuesday, by God’s grace we will no longer of this baggage issues. It will be a thing of the past. We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and this is the first time we are having such an issue and we apologize although there are so many extraneous factors.”
According to Bankole who reeled out strategy for the return of the passenger baggage he said that the loading company seeing their fault is bringing in some baggage via British Airways and Medview’s flight.
“British Airways will bring some of the baggage back tomorrow evening. A team headed by Mr. Michael Animotosun who is head of ground operations who is leading the team, they are in contact with British Airways and have given them some of the baggage tomorrow morning they are moving the bags to preservation, Medview airlines will leave again tomorrow; we will be coming with some baggage and British Airways assures on Saturday they are bringing the second and last one so we are sure everybody here. Again we apologize for the stress.”
He however lamented how the situation degenerated explaining: “ Before anybody could announce to you that your baggage have arrived with confidence, it has been sent to me that your baggage have been screened and they are all onboard. So why this problem? That is why I told them to put everything in black and white because we will use it against them. These are the document from London, I told them to put it in black and white and that is why they are running to BA and others, doing all these to save their jobs as well.
“This is this morning. I don’t want to hide anything so I said bring everything you want to say so people know. These are our people. We wanted to send Nigerians to London to work for us, they said we must employ their indigenes because they said the sponsors’ license has to be secure and one year we have been running and for every passenger we sell tickets in Nigeria who do not have obligation to UK government, they are collecting 75 pounds free. They have collected two million two hundred and twenty-five pounds for doing nothing saying it’s for her majesty the queen.
“ And you are paying someone to handle service at the airport, he is saying holidays, we are not working who is going to carry the baggage are they not paid for? This is something that wouldn’t happen anywhere else but nobody talks.”
“I am so sorry people I feel bad I am ready to take responsibility but I am telling you Medview is our own.”
A passenger who spoke advised the airline to work on communication so that passengers will be duly informed so as not to resort to violent tactics stating that the issue with the baggage had dragged on for a long time, which could cause people to lose it.
Another advised the airline to take down names and contacts of the baggage owners so that when the bags are profiled they can contact the passengers whose luggage have come in instead of all passengers’ besieging the airline office and counters.
A passenger known simply as Andrew told our correspondent that the airline customer service needed to do more stating that anyone can go through problems at any point in time but it’s the way the issues are dealt with that matter.
“ firstly, there was no one telling anybody anything. There was no information and we couldn’t find staff on ground and at the end of the day things spiraled out of control because things in the baggage are things people need to carry out day-to-day activities.”
