Arik Eyes National Carrier

As the federal government works on establishing a national carrier, indications have emerged that the country’s largest carrier, Arik Air, will be disposable to becoming the needed national carrier.

The managing director of the airline, Mr Chris Ndulue, told LEADERSHIP that the airline is only awaiting an official declaration naming it the national carrier as it has already been priding itself as such in the nation’s aviation sphere and abroad.

He said, “When we talk about national carrier, some people tell us that we are the national carrier, but we have not been officially declared the national carrier. So I think that it is just the official declaration that is left. I think we have been acting as a flight carrier for Nigeria and representing it adequately enough and by the grace of God we are still growing. I do not believe that government needs to set up an airline just to call it a national carrier. I think we have to build on what we already have in place.”

Also West Africa’s largest carrier, Arik in October marked nine years of operation in Nigeria and now has 28 aircraft in its fleet. The airline is currently the only Nigeria airline running international operations to the United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (UK) and has lifted over 17 million passengers in the last nine years.

The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Aviation, Hajia Binta Bello, had said that the report of the committee on national carrier was ready and awaiting the president’s approval, but did not give details of the committee’s recommendations.

Recently, Arik has shown improvement with timely flights and cancellations by the airline have also gone down. The airline last week launched an add-on insurance policy for its passengers, in partnership with Old Mutual Plc, in which passengers can claim N1 million for death or incapability resulting from flights and cash reaching N20,000 for delays of up to eight hours as well as outright cancellation of flights. Ndulue said that Arik would continue to improve its services and maintain the lead in the industry.

He, however, decried the high charges by aviation agencies which he blamed for shrinking the flying population.

“Even though it appears like tariffs and charges are borne by passengers, they come back to the airline. What passengers look at is how much is the ticket and nobody separates that from what comes to the airline, or the agencies. It reduces the number of people who can afford to fly and, therefore, reduces the market that the airlines have to share. That is the issue about tariffs,” he said.

He said that at this stage of development in the aviation industry, Nigerian airlines are strong enough to become the source of revenue for agencies.

“I think that it is time they have to look at alternative ways of raising money instead of depending on airlines because this is why tickets are costly. What we have been working on in that regard is to make sure that flights are on time and that flights are not cancelled and we want to sustain that into the Christmas season,” he added.

Credit:Leadership News