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Arik resumes scheduled operations

By Wole Oyebade
22 December 2016   |   4:38 am
Arik Air yesterday morning resumed scheduled flight services on both domestic and international routes after protesting workers and unions called off a strike late Tuesday.
PHOTO: Arik Air

PHOTO: Arik Air

Arik Air yesterday morning resumed scheduled flight services on both domestic and international routes after protesting workers and unions called off a strike late Tuesday.

The Guardian learnt that the airline had a slow start at the Lagos end of operations, as passengers were initially skeptical of flying the airline after the earlier disappointment.

But due to limited capacity of other airlines, passengers gradually went back to the Arik stand, at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT), to make bookings and several of the morning flights flew on schedule.

A passenger for one of the Lagos-Abuja flights, Tunde Adegbite, said it would be quite difficult to come to the airline after the experiences of the last few days.

Adegite said: “But where other airlines are fully booked, and the only one that is available is Arik, what do one do? I only believe they will get their acts together and give us good services,” he said. His flight took off on schedule.

Spokesman, Banji Ola, said the airline had put in place extra flights to various domestic destinations between Wednesday, December 21, 2016 and Saturday, December 24, 2016 and had also upgraded aircraft on certain routes to a bigger capacity to cope with the backlog of passengers whose flights were affected by the strike.

Ola said additional capacity had been allocated throughout this week from both Lagos and Abuja to destinations such as Enugu, Asaba, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Benin, Warri, Uyo, Yola and others, to also enable many of our customers get to their destinations for the yuletide season.

It was learnt that Arik Air, at the meeting, agreed to pay the outstanding October salaries on or before December 23, while that of November would be paid on or before December 31.

“The unions are to submit the acknowledged copies of the letters forwarding membership forms of their prospective members to the NCAA and NCAA shall forward same to the management of Arik Air to do the needful.

“A committee to review the circumstances of all laid-off employees, made up of one member from each union and Arik Air, was constituted, to be inaugurated on January 10, 2017. The Hawker fleet employees are exempted from the review,” a communiqué, issued at the end of the meeting, stated in part.

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