Air Peace, West Africa’s largest carrier, says it denied a one-year-old child and an adult from boarding its Dubai-bound airplane, due to security reasons.
The trouble arose from a tweet by the airline, which read, “Ready to take off into a new week. Have you fastened your seatbelt? Let’s explore together”. The tweet followed a quick response from an angry passenger, accusing the airline of prohibiting her one-year-old son from boarding a plane to Dubai.
The Twitter user with the account name, “Youssouf Rukhayyat”, noted that despite presenting proof that her son was not travelling alone, the airline staff still informed her that her son could not board due to his being under-age.
Her tweet read, “Had a terrible experience yesterday with @flyairpeace with an official simply called Mrs Ann, at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport, Terminal 2, Lagos. She denied my son, (one-yearold) to board yesterday’s flight from Lagos to Dubai saying that he is too small to travel when clearly he can’t and wasn’t travelling alone.
He was accompanied by an adult (family relative) with all the necessary documents (international passport, Emirates Identity card and a letter of authorisation) including the parents’ copy of international passports and an Emirates ID. Why would she deny him without any good reason? She was adamant.”
The Public Relations Officer of Air Peace, Mr. Stanley Olisa, reacted to the development, saying that both the boy and the adult were not allowed on board due to security reasons. He said, “The passenger travelling with a one-year-old boy could not present the requisite documents. A letter of authorisation was not enough. So, our profilers were not satisfied with that and for security reasons, the boy was not allowed to fly. We were being security conscious”.
