Passengers were already boarded when a ground handler’s conveyor belt hit the aircraft, causing damage to the engine cover.
Passengers had to be deboarded. The aircraft was scheduled to fly nine sectors. All passengers waiting for its operations are automatically disrupted, and the airline will face backlash, refund issues, compensation, etc, for a damage that was not its fault, and it would spend large sums of foreign currency to fix.
This is a major setback for Air Peace. The damage is colossal. The entire casing alone is about $3.5m, and the engine, about $18m. Besides the heavy financial losses that this carelessness or sabotage will cost Air Peace, this particular plane is fully booked until January 15, 2026. This will cause Air Peace untold disruptions, and its impact is going to be massive.
The other time, it was a bird strike that cost (by the airline’s admission), over three million dollars to fix. It took an entire month for the airline manufacturer to send them the replacement for the “engine cowling dent.”
According to NCAA spokesman Michael Achimugu, today’s aircraft was one of the brand new E2’s, and it was fully booked until January 15th, 2026. Now, all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation.
“Air Peace has suffered a lot of these technical issues through no fault of theirs. We need to start naming and shaming poorly trained ground handling personnel whose inefficiency costs the airlines great reputational, financial, and technical damage. We will now be looking to strengthen the regulations in a way that also heavily sanctions service providers for matters like the type in the images below.
“Airlines should not be held responsible for situations like this, and passengers should be informed, most honestly, about the reasons for disruptions caused by these unfortunate scenarios.
“In advance, I call for the understanding of passengers who were scheduled to fly this aircraft. I have asked about standby aircraft. The airline has two (which is commendable), but those two have been deployed to cover two other similar situations. In any case, even if they were available, their sitting capacities are less than the damaged E2.
To Air Peace, and indeed all domestic operators, I empathize with you in moments like this,” Achimugu added.
- Fred Chukwuelobe
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