Nigeria’s domestic airlines recorded 4,765 flight delays and 36 cancellations in August 2026, with the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) reporting that about six in every 10 scheduled flights were delayed during the month.
The NCAA disclosed this in its Summary of Domestic Airline Flight Disruption Operations for August 2026, published on Sunday, September 13, 2026. The regulator said 15 domestic carriers operated 7,961 flights during the month, of which 4,765 were delayed, representing 59.9 per cent of total operations.
Air Peace recorded the highest number of delayed flights, with 1,330 delays out of 1,864 flights listed by the NCAA, giving a reported delay rate of 71.4 per cent. The regulator also recorded seven cancellations for the airline.
United Nigeria Airlines had the highest reported delay rate, with 943 of its 1,231 flights delayed, representing 76.6 per cent. It also recorded eight cancellations, the highest number among the airlines covered by the report. Enugu Air recorded 582 delays from 878 flights, while ValueJet had 435 delays from 767 operations.
However, the NCAA figures have been disputed by some airlines. Air Peace, in a statement signed by its Chief Operating Officer, Oluwatoyin Olajide, on Thursday, September 17, 2026, said it operated 2,564 flights in August, rather than the 1,864 flights recorded for it in the NCAA report.
The airline said the difference of more than 700 flights affected the calculation of its reported delay rate. Air Peace also argued that the NCAA figures did not adequately distinguish between delays caused by the airline and disruptions linked to external factors such as airport congestion, industrial action, bird strikes, weather and other operational constraints.
Air Peace further said an internal review attributed 391 delayed flights to factors within its own operations, while it attributed the remaining disruptions to external factors. That breakdown is the airline’s own assessment and has not been independently established by the NCAA in the published August summary.
The dispute has since widened beyond Air Peace, with United Nigeria Airlines and ValueJet also challenging aspects of the NCAA’s August disruption figures and the treatment of factors behind delays.
For passengers, the dispute over the data does not remove existing consumer protections. The NCAA’s Consumer Protection Directorate says it operates under Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations Part 19 and is responsible for monitoring airline compliance with passenger rights, including refund obligations and care during disruptions.
The competing figures mean that the NCAA’s August statistics and the airlines’ alternative operational data should be treated as separate positions until the underlying figures and methodology are reconciled.
