Why United Nigeria Boarded Passengers with Handwritten Tickets

By Dickson Omobola

United Nigeria Airlines (UNA) has addressed concerns raised by travellers after a video circulated showing passengers receiving handwritten boarding tickets.

The clip was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Morris Monye. He questioned the incident and voiced worries about aviation standards.

Monye wrote: “What is going on with our aviation? I was on an early morning flight with United Nigeria and I, alongside many other passengers, got issued a handwritten ticket. If I didn’t video it, you probably would not believe me. It’s concerning for me.”

UNA’s spokesperson, Mr Chibuike Uloka, explained the situation to Vanguard. He said the issue stemmed from a downtime of the RESA system.

RESA is an airport and airline passenger processing system that handles flight check‑in, seat allocation, boarding pass issuance and other passenger operations.

Uloka added: “There was RESA downtime on the day of the flight out of Lagos Airport. The system used in Lagos, which is provided by Bi‑Courtney, operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal 2, had downtime and to avoid flight delay or disruptions, we had to board passengers manually rather than waiting for the system to come up before we operate which would create chaos and delay passengers from their itinerary. It was RESA system downtime by Bi‑Courtney in Lagos alone not necessarily United Nigeria issues. It affected all airlines using the same RESA.”

The post “Why we boarded passengers with handwritten tickets – United Nigeria” first appeared on Vanguard News.