Dana Air pilots yesterday embarked on strike, leaving the airline’s passengers across the country stranded for several hours.

The strike was for reasons not unconnected with the allegedly unpaid salaries and welfare issues.

The protest brought normal Dana Air scheduled flight operations to a halt nationwide. Alleged failure of the operator to properly inform the passengers on the development further left their customers in confusion for better part of the day.

At Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) terminal in Lagos, the atmosphere was charged as stranded passengers said their flights had been delayed for several hours without end in sight.

Some minutes before 2:00 p.m., a Lagos-Uyo flight scheduled for 8:30 a.m. was still announced as “delayed”. The same was recorded for Dana Air flight 9J355 to Abuja originally scheduled for 11:07 a.m.; another flight 9J335 to Abuja at 12:40 p.m. and the next 9J357, also to Abuja scheduled for 14:13 hours, were all delayed.

The airline, however, began to refund ticket fares to morning flight passengers around 2:00 p.m.

A female, who identified herself as Christiana, said it was quite disappointing that the airliner delayed for several hours before communicating to customers that they had issues.

Another passenger travelling to Uyo also lamented that he had been at the airport since 7:00 a.m. and “they kept saying that the flight has been delayed for another one hour, when they know that they would not fly.”

Meanwhile, the spokesperson of the airline, Kingsley Ezenwa, told reporters that the management was working hard to resolve the crisis within a short time to enable it restore normal flight operations.

•Adapted from a Guardian report.

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