I have never flown a Nigerian local airline that departed at the scheduled time for take-off. The Cabin crew and the flight captain must apologize for departing behind schedule and I’m quite certain that this is not my personal experience, many other constant flyers can confirm to this my assertion that Nigerian airlines are fond of failing to keep to time. I for one am actually tired of hearing the cabin crew or the captain giving apologies over the bad-sounding microphone for departing later than the scheduled time.
This experience is quite unique only to the Nigerian local flights as international flights operating from Nigeria always keep to time and it has only been in rare cases that an International aircraft would take off behind schedule may be due to factors beyond their control; like the weather factor.
The “African time” factor has really eaten deep into the Nigerian system, everything in Nigeria that requires time is being driven by the “African time” factor. According to the “African time” principle, you are not to keep to your time because the other party you are dealing with is bound never to keep to the time. The principle expounded that if your event is scheduled to start by 10 am you are to state that the meeting is starting by 8 am and expect the guest(s) to come around by 10 am, if you make the mistake of stating the right time your event is to start, expect your guests to show up late; an hour or even two hours late.
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This African time factor has really messed up the whole system in Nigeria and it seems we won’t get over it any time soon but it is despicable that flights that are run by time management and people chose it over other means of transportation because of the time management advantage will keep failing to keep to their time schedules. Not just local airlines, rail networks also don’t keep to time in Nigeria. This is not hearsay, I’m a regular user.
The Nigerian system needs to take time management seriously as time management has a huge impact on the economy and other productive sectors. A properly utilized time will have a good effect and Vice versa.
An old English cliche goes that time is money. I guess Nigerians are yet to grasp this concept and believe in it that time is not just abstract but actually money and we should do more in our time management especially our local airlines should do better in time management and working within schedule except when it is beyond their control.
