Chimezie Uzoukwu, a travel agent, has accused Air Peace of attempting to rip him off by withholding two-thirds of the money he paid for a flight that the airline cancelled.
Uzoukwu told FIJ that he had repeatedly requested a refund through Wakanow, the agency he used to book the flight, but Air Peace did not respond until Thursday when they offered to refund only N500,000.
The travel agent said he booked a Lagos–Johannesburg ticket worth N1,557,836 on January 11 for a client through Wakanow. However, his client was unable to use the ticket because the airline cancelled the flight a few days before departure.
He said the cancellation left his client stranded in Lagos, where they had travelled to catch an international flight. To salvage the situation, Uzoukwu booked another flight with his money while simultaneously processing a refund with Air Peace.
READ ALSO: 5 Days After FIJ’s Story, Air Peace Refunds Activist’s N310,000 Withheld for 3 Months
Uzoukwu said Wakanow informed him that the airline would ascertain the refund value within a few days and that the refund process itself would take another four weeks. However, after four weeks, Air Peace still had not refunded him.
“I kept sending messages. I called, but there was no response. When I contacted Wakanow, they said Air Peace had yet to ascertain the refund value and, therefore, had not refunded them on my behalf,” Uzoukwu told FIJ.
The travel agent said that on March 6, nearly two months after the cancellation, Wakanow informed him that Air Peace had decided to refund only N500,000.
READ ALSO: How Air Peace Left Lagos-Bound Travellers Stranded in Empty Benin Airport at Night
“I didn’t agree to that. They want to rip me off by keeping two-thirds of my original payment. I told Air Peace the last time I spoke to them over the phone that I would go public if they didn’t refund me. They said I should wait until next week for them to rectify it. This is the third time Air Peace has done this to me,” Uzoukwu explained.
“The way Air Peace handled the issue caused additional hardship for my client. After the cancellation, they offered to reroute him through RwandAir, but the plan failed because RwandAir has a policy of not flying passengers who do not have a return ticket with them. Air Peace was aware of this policy yet still offered the reroute.”
FIJ emailed Air Peace for comments, but the airline was yet to respond at press time.
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10 replies on “Air Peace Offers N500,000 Refund After Cancelling Travel Agent’s N1.5m Flight”
When you book a flight through a travel agency like Wakanow and Travelstart, they have bought every right to that ticket including refund. Your battle is with Wakanow not Air Peace.
Ministry of Aviation should have to urgently call airpeace to order because this exactly is what they do even to domestic passengers. They will cancel a flight and not refund but ask passengers to select another date for free. By the time you approach the counter, the staff will ask you to make payment again and at the same time, they have the worst of Staff at the counters. (Very Rude).
Air peace should be awarded the most useless and most unreliable airline to have ever flown the Nigerian airspace. They have zero regards for their clients.. Very very useless service
Ground staff represent the airline, rude, untrained, and the staff act as if they are doing the customer a favour, zero understanding of the meaning of customer service. Report them at the international bodies for illegal practice and extortion.
Regards.
This is totally very very wrong , firstly for any Airlines to cancel one’s flight both domestic or international flights the pax is entitled to full refund of whatever amount he or she pay for the ticket , Airpeace have no business with you in this aspect because your ticket purchased was via a 3rd party agency and there are rules governing this as such you shouldn’t accept anything from wakanow but a total amount that you paid to them so please my brother you need to understand tickets rules more so u will be able to fight wrong refund value by wakanow so please do not accept the 500k also u can reach out to me I will tell you what to do and how to regain your money [email protected]
Air peace takes away peace. Very shameful conduct. They should refund the entire 1.5 million with a 10% subcharge. I expect the aviation minister to cause air peace to do the needful
Waka now should provide a better explanation on the refund because they are the direct agent.
They should be fighting this and not the third party agent.
Why has nobody sue them for damages if their services are so bad, without regards for their customers…
It is very unwise to swallow information hook, line and sinker. If a person books through a third party(wakanow, trip. Com etc), it clearly means that the third party has total control of the tkt. Any issue that arises as a result should be dealt with by the agent. Bear in mind that said agents get tkts at way affordable prices and sell at prices best suited to them. This does not apply to just Air Peace but other airlines. If a tkt was disrupted or unavoidably cancelled, then Air Peace gives 100% refund. Still a passenger can also be advised to re route or reschedule the tkt, this will be done free of charge (FOC).
Be wise not travel air to london. He can rip people off Nigeria but not international. Onyema isn’t ready to do business. He should go for training on how to manage airp business. It is better for airpeace drop the idea of connecting every country without proper knowledge of what it means to run air business. This business is not criminals. Let him take a cue from Richard Bradson.