Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
According to our correspondent, British Airways has cancelled its flight that was scheduled to arrive in Abuja in the early hours of Saturday.
The news comes after a BA83 flight from London-Heathrow to Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) was abruptly diverted to Lagos.
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Passengers affected by the cancellation and diversion expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of adequate notice.
Though BA did not provide an explanation, the flight’s detour could be linked to the terror alert in Abuja, with several foreign missions issuing travel warnings to their citizens.
Despite the federal government’s efforts to assuage concerns, foreigners are reportedly fleeing the country in droves, and a major mall in Nigeria’s capital closed on Thursday.
According to Track News, after BA brought passengers from Abuja to Lagos on Thursday, the passengers, mostly Nigerians, refused to disembark and insisted on the flight terminating in Abuja.
“When they refused and insisted on the flight terminating in Abuja as contracted, the crew threatened to launch tear gas at the mostly Nigerian passengers right in the plane!” one of the passengers wrote in a WhatsApp group.
“They’d been telling people on board since they boarded last night, Abuja,” they said. Why do you have to go there? After an exhilarating session and an hour on the ground, the plane took off and arrived in Abuja around 11 a.m.
“There’s a lot of mischief going on with this terror attack warning, and it smells like we should talk less and pull out antennae to their highest gain heights.” This isn’t just a terror warning; there are more schemes and actions by enemies both inside and outside the country.”
However, our correspondent discovered that the Abuja-bound flight, which was scheduled to depart London at 10 p.m. and arrive in Abuja at 4:40 a.m. on Saturday, had been canceled.
The flight radar also indicated that the Abuja-bound flights for Friday and Saturday had been cancelled.
The return flight from Abuja to London, on the other hand, was said to have taken off normally.
At the time of publication, British Airways had not issued an official statement.
