Ibom Air has distanced itself from the viral video showing a female passenger in an indecent state during a recent in-flight incident.
Gatekeepers News reports that speaking to TVC News on Monday, Aniekan Essienette, the airline’s group manager for marketing and communications, confirmed that while the incident took place onboard one of their aircraft, the video did not originate from the airline.
She said, “As much as the video was taken on board, we had several other people that were not lbom Air employees around the vicinity. So, anyone could have taken that video.”
“I can tell you categorically that the video was not released by us. It is rather unfortunate that it has gone viral.”
“We do not condone such indecent exposure, so we would not have been the ones to release it.”
Essienette explained that the passenger was forcefully removed after refusing to disembark despite security instructions.
She said, “She had tried to come out earlier, but she was restrained because of some activities that had happened behind the scene and eventually, the pilot in-command had to call security.”
“For us to ensure that security takes her directly off the plane, our crew had to restrain her for a bit and we saw what resulted after that happened.”
Addressing the broader issue of disruptive passengers, Essienette stressed that no airline sets out to humiliate customers and urged authorities to focus on preventing similar incidents in the future.
Her statement follows an order by Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, directing sanctions against any Ibom Air staff member found responsible for leaking the footage.
While the minister acknowledged that recording the incident for legal evidence was acceptable, he condemned making indecent content public as “totally unacceptable.”
