Nigeria: Arik Airlines to resume operations Wednesday, September 14, 2016

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Arik Air will resume normal flights operations on Wednesday, the airline has said, hours after announcing the suspension of its services.
The company’s Public Relations and Communications Manager, Olabanji Ola, told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday night that the airline will notify passengers and customers that flight services will resume at 11 a.m.

“Our normal schedules resume 11 a.m. on Wednesday,” Mr. Ola said. “We’re already sending out messages to this effect.”
The update comes hours after the airline —whose fleet of 28 aircrafts touches 18 airports across the country— announced an indefinite suspension of operations, causing a panic amongst thousands returning to their bases after the Sallah holidays.

The cancellation left thousands of travelers stranded as the Sallah holidays ended.
Arik blamed a delay in perfecting insurance paperworks for the disruptions.

Mr. Ola said the delay in “approval of documentation” was caused by the public holiday which was followed a “long weekend”.

“At the present time, all flights of the airline have been cancelled for Tuesday, 13 September, 2016 and the airline has stated that it would be getting in touch with passengers to provide an update on rescheduling of their flights,” he said earlier. “This situation is likely to continue for the next few days until such time that NAICOM (National Insurance Commission) approves a waiver on a priority basis for the new insurance company to renew the policy.”

Mr. Ola said passengers had been notified of the initial development via text messages.
The statement was silent on compensation, but Mr. Olabanji told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone that the airline was taking care of all concerns arising from the crisis.

“We’re addressing all issues relating to the disruption,” Mr. Olabanji said. “But I am not going to get into specifics about compensation at this point.”

The development came two weeks after two other national carriers, Aero Contractors and FirstNation, suspended operations on August 31 and September 1, respectively.

While Aero blamed a difficult business environment for its decision to close down and send staff on indefinite leave, First Nation said it wanted engineers to carry out a routine maintenance of its fleet.

Samuel Ogundipe I Premium Times

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