Arik Air suspends flight operations to Dubai

… Attributes flight delays to aviation fuel scarcity

Arik Air has announced the suspension of its flight operations to Dubai.  According to a statement from the airline which states that “its Executive Board has taken the decision to temporarily suspend its Dubai service operating from Lagos via Abuja with effect from April 28, 2015.” The airline gave the reason for the suspension to be a challenging economic atmosphere in Nigeria and difficult travel regulations by the Gulf country.  “A challenging wider economic environment in Nigeria as well as increasingly stringent travel regulation controls in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) has contributed to the decision to suspend the service.”

Also the airline has blamed its recent flight delays and cancellations on the fuel shortage at its operational base in Lagos.  “Flight delays and cancellations being experienced by Arik Air passengers in the last few days have been attributed to the general scarcity of aviation fuel (Jet A1) in Lagos.

There has been short supply of the product in Lagos and this has led to rationing by the petroleum product marketers. Signs of the scarcity started manifesting on Thursday, April 23, 2015 when marketers were unable to meet the demands of the airlines, especially Arik Air which by volume of its operations requires a daily supply of between  600,000 and 800,000 litres of aviation fuel”-the airline said.

The airline expressed how the fuel scarcity has negatively impacted on its operations: “The scarcity has impacted negatively on Arik Air’s operations as flights have had to be delayed or cancelled in cases where the destination airport has no airfield lighting.

 In some other cases, flights were diverted to other airports outside Lagos where the product was readily available.

On Friday, Arik Air’s flight to London Heathrow had to go via Accra to take fuel. Also on Saturday, the same London flight had to go to Cotonou, Benin Republic first to fuel before coming back to Lagos for the outbound flight to Heathrow.

In the case of the Johannesburg flight of Friday, the aircraft had to first go to Port Harcourt where fuel was available before proceeding on the journey. On Monday, the London flight went via Kano to take fuel. Flying via other stations to take fuel has come at a great cost to Arik Air but the airline had to do this to ameliorate the inconvenience the scarcity may cause its guests.”

Arik Air sincerely apologise to its esteemed guests over the inconvenience which is due to circumstances beyond the control of the airline. The management also appeals to its esteemed guests to bear with the airline at this critical time of fuel scarcity hoping that the situation would be back to normal in a short while.