Na wa ooooo......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.
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