By Chinedu Eze
Dana Air has apologised to its customers over the disruption of their flights on different routes since Thursday due to the grounding of one of its aircraft.
Since Thursday restive passengers had been protesting against flight delays and cancelations but the airline said that it had to take critical decision to ensure it continues to operate safely.
The airline in a statement issued by its media and Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa, said some of the airline’s scheduled flights were disrupted due to nose steering lock on one of its Abuja to Lagos flights which also made the airline to ground the aircraft in line with its strict safety standards.
“On Thursday July 11, 2019, one of our Lagos Abuja flights developed a nose wheel problem upon landing in Abuja and after a thorough assessment by our team of engineers, we decided to ground the aircraft in line with our strict stance on safety.
“Although a nose steering lock is not a defect but a mechanism to prevent further damage on the aircraft prompted us to ground the aircraft. We sincerely wish to apologise to our guest for the delays occasioned by this incident and to also assure them that their safety comes first before any consideration in our daily operations,” Ezenwa said.
He said the aircraft had however been flown to Lagos for the airline’s engineers to conduct full scale checks.
“In the interim, we have made proper arrangements with our partner airlines to ferry our guests to their various destinations together with other serviceable aircraft in our fleet.
“We wish to once again reassure our guests that their safety and comfort will remain a top priority in our operations and necessary compensations will be communicated to the affected guests,” the airline said.
