Airline

The International Civil Aviation Organization Reports stated that in 2018, airlines set another record by flying about 4.5 billion passengers on nearly 45 million flights worldwide and on the average, everyday more than 8 million people fly to various destinations and according to the Air Travel Consumer report issued by the US Department of Transport, an average of 1 in 150 people have their checked baggage misdirected or left behind each year and went further to report that 0.6 fatal accidents happened per one million flights globally. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation which is domesticated by establishment of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority with the powers to regulate air navigation, registration of aircrafts, inspection and regulation of aerodromes as well as licensing of air transport undertakings amongst other functions and pursuant to section 78 of the Civil Aviation Act, CAP. C13, LFN, 2010, aircraft means any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from reactions of the air other than reactions of the air against the earth’s surface, examples of which include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), gliders, paramotors and hot air balloons. It is a well known fact that air travel is the safest and fastest means of transportation, but its accidents are the most fatal and usually fraught with loss of passenger luggage due to negligence of either the employees of the airline carrier or airport security personnel or perhaps the passengers themselves out of carelessness. In this article, we looked at when an airline’s liability to its passengers or customers will arise in aircraft accident or loss of baggage and the laws regulating same based on the case of Harka Air Services (Nigeria) Limited v. Keazor (2011) 13 NWLR (Pt. 1264) 320 SC with a view to enlightening air travelers about their legal rights in similar situations or occurrences.