264 passengers that Air Peace had airlifted from Nigeria had their visas revoked by Saudi Arabia due to inaccurate information; nevertheless, Air Peace has denied any wrongdoing.
Saudi Arabia claimed on Wednesday that the travellers used false information in order to be granted a visa category that does not apply to them.
Following their arrival in Jeddah on Monday, a flight that departed from Kano on Sunday, Saudi Arabia revoked the visas of 177 travellers, allowing 87 of them to stay in the nation.
The Saudi embassy justified the cancellation of the visa by claiming that the passengers had not complied with the laws and regulations of the Arab country.
However, hours after Saudi’s clarification, Air Peace, in a statement signed by Oluwatoyin Olajide, the airline’s chief operating officer, said that the visa cancellation was not the fault of the company.
Air Peace said Saudi Arabia’s ministry of foreign affairs provided a visa confirmation platform used to verify the passengers’ visas before they were allowed to check in for the flight.
“The visas of all passengers on the said flight to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia were checked and verified through the requisite procedures and were vetted to be valid before departure,” Air Peace said.
“The visas were verified using the visa confirmation platform provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saudi Arabia which confirmed the validity of each passenger visa before passengers were allowed to check-in for the flight.
“All the visas of the 264 passengers were duly verified, confirmed, and accepted as authentic for the trip through the visa portal provided by the Saudi Arabia authorities, if not, no passengers would have been able to depart from Nigeria.
“This is just one of two steps required before a passenger is accepted on the flight to Saudi Arabia. The next step is the use of the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). We equally used this system to determine the admissibility or otherwise of each passenger on that flight.”
