Arik Air’s United States and South Africa-bound
passengers, who were stranded due to bad weather
condition, on Wednesday disrupted the airline’s services
at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed
Airport in Lagos.
The airline’s members of staff at a point abandoned their
duty posts as the passengers became uncontrollable.
Arik, like other domestic airlines, has been unable to fly
its international passengers to their destinations since
Tuesday, December 27, thereby creating a backlog.
The development is coming barely a day after the
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority sanctioned the airline for
violating passengers’ rights and contravening the
provisions of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations.
It was gathered that since Monday, Arik Air had not been
able to operate flights to London, New York in the United
States and Johannesburg in South Africa.
Passengers lamented that despite the backlog and the
inability of the airline’s flights to depart for these
destinations, Arik’s officials at the international terminal
sold tickets to unsuspecting passengers.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the airline had not airlifted
its London-bound passengers, while its Johannesburg
passengers were still waiting.
In a reaction, Arik’s spokesperson, Adebanji Ola, said the
airline had ferried an aircraft back from the John F.
Kennedy Airport to fly its Lagos-New York passengers.
He said that due to the damage to its Boeing A330-200
aircraft by a ground-handling company at the JFK airport
a few days ago, the airline had to charter a B767-300ER
aircraft from a European charter operator to minimise the
disruption and inconvenience to booked passengers on
its Lagos-New York service.
He said, “This arrangement was put in place to cover for
the period until the return to service of our A330-200
aircraft on December 28, 2016.
“The Lagos-New York flight, which was scheduled to be
operated by the charter company and depart Lagos on
Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 11:00am, could not
operate due to the closure of the airspace for several
hours due to bad weather. Despite the airline’s repeated
appeals to the charter operator to operate the next fight,
they insisted on positioning their crew and aircraft back to
Europe on Wednesday, December 28, 2016.”
He said Arik immediately commenced the ferry back of
its A330-200 aircraft from New York to Lagos on
Wednesday, and that the aircraft was expected to arrive
Lagos today (Thursday).
“Passengers originally booked on Arik Air’s flight W3 107
on Tuesday, December 27, 2016 from Lagos to New York
JFK will now be accommodated to travel on Thursday,
December 29, 2016 at 06:00am,” Ola added.
