Airlines have made several objectively strange practices feel entirely routine. A confirmed booking may not secure a seat. An advertised fare may be almost impossible to buy at the price displayed. A two-hour delay may be disclosed in seven instalments. A loyalty currency may lose value quietly. And when the journey breaks down, reaching someone authorised to fix it can sometimes take longer than the flight itself.
In his essay, The Seven Ordinary Sins of Airlines, Ilia Liotuv examines how these practices have become embedded in the airline product, and where legitimate commercial logic gives way to poor execution. The argument translates remarkably well to African aviation, where some of these practices are intensified by thinner route networks, limited competition on certain city-pairs, capacity constraints, infrastructure challenges and uneven regulatory enforcement.
The issue is not that airlines use commercially rational mechanisms. Overbooking can improve load factors. More seats can reduce unit costs. Unbundling allows passengers to pay for services they actually want. Loyalty programmes generate significant commercial value. The question is what happens when these mechanisms reach the passenger.
Consider overbooking. The mathematical logic is understandable: airlines know that some passengers will not show up. But the consequences can be very different in Africa, where flight frequencies on some routes are limited. A passenger denied boarding on a Lagos-Abuja, Nairobi-Mombasa or Johannesburg-Harare service may not find another flight a few hours later. The next available seat could be the following day.
The problem, therefore, is not simply selling one seat twice. It is discovering whose seat it actually was at the boarding gate and what happens to the passenger afterwards.
Then there is the shrinking seat. African carriers, like airlines elsewhere, are responding to rising demand and the pressure to maximise revenue from expensive aircraft assets. As air travel becomes accessible to a growing middle class, passengers may find themselves paying less while accepting progressively tighter cabins and reduced comfort. Affordability is welcome, but discomfort should not automatically become the assumed price of mobility.
Unbundling presents another challenge. A low headline fare can become considerably more expensive once baggage, seat selection, priority boarding, flexibility and other services are added. There is nothing inherently wrong with charging separately for optional services. The problem begins when a passenger cannot reasonably understand the final cost from the initial fare.
Boarding has also become increasingly complicated. Priority passengers, premium customers, loyalty members, families and general passengers may all be assigned different lanes or groups. In airports where space and infrastructure are limited, elaborate boarding systems can sometimes create more theatre than efficiency. A process designed to organise passengers can instead produce confusion.
But perhaps the most familiar of these sins in African aviation is the rolling delay.
“Departing in 30 minutes.” Then another 30 minutes. Then a gate change. Perhaps an aircraft change. Then another announcement.
Passengers often complain less about a delay itself than about uncertainty. A three-hour delay honestly communicated at 9 a.m. can be easier to accept than six consecutive half-hour promises. The distinction is important because passengers plan around published schedules. A departure time is not merely a suggestion; it is part of the service being purchased.
Loyalty programmes create another version of the same problem. As African airlines expand their frequent-flyer offerings, passengers are accumulating miles whose value can change through expiry rules, altered redemption rates, limited award availability or revised benefits. The currency remains visible, but its purchasing power may quietly diminish.
And when disruption occurs, the final problem emerges: the unreachable human. A website may be unable to resolve the issue, a call centre may be overwhelmed, a local office may be closed, while airport personnel may lack the authority to make the necessary decision. The passenger then begins a second journey—from problem to solution.
Of the seven ordinary sins, the rolling delay may be the most normalised in African aviation. Not because delays are unique to the continent, but because uncertainty itself has increasingly become part of the travel experience.
Passengers arrive at airports mentally prepared for delays, schedule changes, aircraft substitutions and prolonged waiting. What might provoke outrage in another service industry is sometimes met with resignation in aviation.
That resignation should concern the industry.
When customers stop asking, “Why is this happening?” and start asking, “How long will it really be?”, the practice has moved beyond being an exception. It has become part of the product.
The greatest sin in African aviation may therefore not be delay itself. It is the quiet acceptance that a published departure time is merely the opening bid in a negotiation between airline and passenger.
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Ekelem Airhihen, an accredited mediator, has an MBA from the Lagos Business School. He is a member, ACI Airport Non-aeronautical Revenue Activities Committee; his interests are in market research, customer experience and performance measurement, negotiation, strategy and data and business analytics. He can be reached on ekyair@yahoo.com and +2348023125396 (WhatsApp only).
