Chimezie Uzoukwu, a travel agent, has accused Air Peace of attempting to rip him off by withholding two-thirds of the money he paid for a flight that the airline cancelled.
Uzoukwu told FIJ that he had repeatedly requested a refund through Wakanow, the agency he used to book the flight, but Air Peace did not respond until Thursday when they offered to refund only N500,000.
The travel agent said he booked a Lagos–Johannesburg ticket worth N1,557,836 on January 11 for a client through Wakanow. However, his client was unable to use the ticket because the airline cancelled the flight a few days before departure.
He said the cancellation left his client stranded in Lagos, where they had travelled to catch an international flight. To salvage the situation, Uzoukwu booked another flight with his money while simultaneously processing a refund with Air Peace.
Uzoukwu said Wakanow informed him that the airline would ascertain the refund value within a few days and that the refund process itself would take another four weeks. However, after four weeks, Air Peace still had not refunded him.
“I kept sending messages. I called, but there was no response. When I contacted Wakanow, they said Air Peace had yet to ascertain the refund value and, therefore, had not refunded them on my behalf,” Uzoukwu told FIJ.
The travel agent said that on March 6, nearly two months after the cancellation, Wakanow informed him that Air Peace had decided to refund only N500,000.
“I didn’t agree to that. They want to rip me off by keeping two-thirds of my original payment. I told Air Peace the last time I spoke to them over the phone that I would go public if they didn’t refund me. They said I should wait until next week for them to rectify it. This is the third time Air Peace has done this to me,” Uzoukwu explained.
“The way Air Peace handled the issue caused additional hardship for my client. After the cancellation, they offered to reroute him through RwandAir, but the plan failed because RwandAir has a policy of not flying passengers who do not have a return ticket with them. Air Peace was aware of this policy yet still offered the reroute.”
