Nigeria’s major commercial airline, Arik Air, has announced plans to suspend flight operations from today over the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, potentially leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.
The Managing Director, Arik Air, Mr Chris Ndulue disclosed this yesterday at the airline corporate headquarters while addressing aviation reporters.
According to him, Arik has been operating 20% of its daily flights schedule because of scarcity of aviation fuel, particularly in Lagos, its major hub. The airline operates about 120 flights on its domestic routes daily.
Ndulue said: “ This aviation fuel scarcity started last week Thursday. And since then, we have had to scale down our operations due to non-availability of fuel. We have had to cancel and reschedule flights. We couldn’t depart for Dubai yesterday due to this scarcity. It is becoming impossible to continue. We will suspend flights operation from tomorrow (Saturday), until when aviation fuel becomes available.
“ It is the contingency arrangement for fuel during this scarcity that has taken us this far . We may not be able to continue. We have been losing revenue by cancelling flights and not operating at full capacity. We require about 500,000 to 800,000 litres of fuel daily to power both our domestic and international routes. Our international flights have had to go to Ghana, sometimes Cotonou and even Togo to get fuel before proceeding to London or United States.”
Stressing on the negative impact of the current scarcity of fuel on its operations, the airline said, “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 liters of aviation fuel.”
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