Domestic Airlines Record 4,765 Delays, 36 Cancellations in August — NCAA

Nigeria’s domestic airlines recorded 4,765 delays out of 7,961 scheduled flights in August 2026, representing about 59.9 per cent of total operations during the month, according to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

The NCAA’s Summary of Domestic Airline Flight Disruption Operations for August 2026 released on Sunday, also shows that 36 flights were cancelled, accounting for about 0.5 per cent of total scheduled operations.

Of the 4,765 delayed flights, 2,801 were delayed between 16 minutes and one hour, while 1,322 experienced delays of between one and two hours.

A further 407 flights were delayed between two and three hours, while 235 flights suffered delays of three hours and above.

Of the 4,765 delayed flights, 4,123, representing 86.5 per cent, were delayed for no more than two hours, while 642 experienced delays exceeding two hours.

Air Peace Records Highest Number Of Delays

Air Peace recorded the highest number of delayed flights during the period, with 1,330 delays out of 1,864 flights, representing about 71.4 per cent of its operations.

It was followed by United Nigeria Airlines, which recorded 943 delayed flights out of 1,231 operations, giving a delay rate of about 76.6 per cent — the highest among the airlines with recorded operations.

Enugu Air recorded 582 delays out of 878 flights, while ValueJet had 435 delays from 767 operations.

Other airlines with significant numbers of delayed flights included Aero Contractors (246), Ibom Air (254), Arik Air (188), Max Air (204) and Rano Air (216).

United Nigeria Leads In Delay Rate

When measured against the number of flights operated, United Nigeria recorded the highest delay rate at approximately 76.6 per cent, followed by Air Peace at 71.4 per cent and Enugu Air at 66.3 per cent.

Arik recorded a delay rate of 62.5 per cent, while Max Air stood at 60.7 per cent.

At the other end of the scale, Umza Air recorded 52 delays out of 403 flights, representing about 12.9 per cent, the lowest delay rate among airlines with recorded operations.

XE Jet recorded 40 delays from 127 flights, while Binani had 22 delays from 57 operations.

36 Flights Cancelled

The NCAA data further shows that 36 domestic flights were cancelled across the airlines during the month.

United Nigeria recorded the highest number of cancellations with eight, followed by Air Peace with seven.

Enugu Air recorded four cancellations, while Max Air and Green Africa each recorded three. Arik, Ibom Air, Rano Air and ValueJet recorded one, three, three and three cancellations respectively.

Aero, Binani, Overland, Umza Air and XE Jet recorded no cancellations, according to the NCAA summary.

NGEAGLE had no flight-operation figures recorded for the month.

Overall, the August figures show that flight delays remain a significantly larger source of domestic aviation disruption than cancellations, with nearly six out of every 10 scheduled flights experiencing some level of delay during the period.