NCAA Facilitates Arik Air’s Resumption

…Arik Air Appreciates Sirika, Places Extra Flights To Clear Backlog

Sen. Hadi Sirika, Nigeria's Minister of State for Aviation

Nigeria’s agency saddled with the responsibility to regulate aviation, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) played the role of a mediator between the unions and Arik Air to resolve the acrimony and ensure the resumption of flight operations after hours of disruption by the unions.

“Calm has been restored between the Aviation Unions and Arik Air by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) who brokered a truce between both parties” said Sam Adurogboye, the spokesperson to NCAA. “The Regulatory Authority had to intervene to avert the impending chaos, the strike if allowed to linger would have brought to the huge volume of passengers who are travelling for the yuletide and end of the year celebrations. The Airline and the Unions were summoned to the Aviation House, Conference Room of the NCAA where very fruitful deliberations were held with the NCAA as the moderator”.

Adurogboye who was in the meeting said the Chairman, Arik Air, Sir Johnson Arumeni, at the end of the meeting “thanked the Honourable Minister of State for Aviation, Hon. Hadi Sirika, the Director General of the NCAA, Captain Muhtar Usman, Captain Sidi Abdullahi Director of Training and Operations(DOT), other management staff of NCAA present and all the Union officials for their intervention and amicable resolution of the crisis.”

Meanwhile, Arik Air is making effort to cater for the backlog to ameliorate the discomfort experienced by passengers as a result of disruption by the unions.

“Full scheduled operations will resume from the morning of Wednesday, 21 December, 2016.The airline has put in place extra flights to various domestic destinations between Wednesday, 21 December 2016 and Saturday, 24 December, 2016 and has also upgraded aircraft on certain routes to a bigger capacity to cope with the backlog of passengers whose flights were affected by the unions’ disruptive action on Tuesday, 20 December, 2016” said Banji Ola the Public Relations Manager to Arik Air.

“Additional capacity has been allocated throughout this week from both Lagos and Abuja to destinations such as Enugu, Asaba, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Benin, Warri, Uyo , Yola and so on to also enable many of our customers to get to their destinations for the yuletide season.”

Arik Air advised that passengers whose flights were affected by the disruption on Tuesday, 20 December, 2016 to contact its Call Centre or via email for rebooking options.