Chinedu Eze
Egypt Air Lagos-Cairo flight was disrupted on Tuesday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos by passengers totaling about 219 who were earlier brought into the country without their checked in luggage.
Majority of the passengers who arrived Lagos on May 19, 2026 did not get their checked in luggage one week after their arrival; so, they blocked the airline from checking in passengers scheduled to leave to Cairo, Egypt, insisting that their luggage must be delivered before they would allow the airline to check in new passengers.
They stiffly stood against the check-in process and when the ground staff of the airline wanted to address them, they refused to listen to them, insisting that the General Manager of the airline must come and address them.
All the entreaties by other airport officials failed because the passengers complained that since they arrived without their checked-in luggage, the airline did not send them message through their emails to give them update on the possibility of getting their luggage from May 19 most of them arrived the country till date.
“The passengers are angry that there was no communication with them. That is the major thing that is annoying them. Most of the passengers came in on May 19. Any effort to address them by the station manager and the cargo manager was rebuffed by the passengers who insisted that the General Manager, Egypt Air must address them. Some of them alleged that there is discrimination,” one of the passengers billed to travel with the airline, told THISDAY.
The Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Michael Achimugu, told THISDAY in a telephone interview that when he got the report, he called the General Manager of the airline in Nigeria, Amr Basha, and urged him to meet the passengers along with NCAA officials at the airport.
Achimugu explained to THISDAY that the airline operates small body aircraft (Boeing 737-800), which has the right capacity for the passengers it airlifts from Lagos but because of the predilection of Nigerian passengers to carry heavy luggage, the luggage compartment of the aircraft is inadequate for the luggage of the passengers.
So, what the airline does is that after some time when the luggage has increased to justify deploying a bigger aircraft, it would deploy an Airbus A330 to the route to bring both the luggage and the passengers.
“What I think is that the airline may have waited for the luggage to increase in number to justify the deployment of a bigger aircraft to the route. And when you really consider the delay in bringing the luggage, the airline has not contravened any regulation because it has about 21 days to deliver passengers’ luggage which it has not passed. However, the Manager assured that the airline will bring all the luggage tomorrow (Wednesday) and the next day,” Achimugu told THISDAY.
But just as Achimugu said, the General Manager who left the Victoria island head office of the airline in Lagos arrived the airport shortly before the official departure time of the flight and spoke to the passengers.
The passengers intransigence further delayed the facilitation of the passengers billed to depart to Cairo. One of the passengers complained bitterly that she arrived Lagos without her luggage and she was to depart to the US on Wednesday and wondered how she would get her luggage when they eventually delivered it.
Mr. Basha assured them that the luggage would be delivered on Wednesday but the passengers whose luggage were delayed seemed not satisfied and continued to disagree with the Manager, until the passengers who were being delayed from checking in challenged them and insisted that they should allow the airline staff to check them in.
The airline finally departed at about 4:00 pm, two hours behind schedule.
