What is the trouble Arik Air?
But, first, let me say that these cruel experiences were witnessed by virtually all air passengers who were checked in to travel in the morning of that fateful day because of the very unpalatable fact that virtually all the flights scheduled by all the private airlines, including Aero Contractors and Air Nigeria, cancelled their schedules. […]
But, first, let me say that these cruel experiences were witnessed by virtually all air passengers who were checked in to travel in the morning of that fateful day because of the very unpalatable fact that virtually all the flights scheduled by all the private airlines, including Aero Contractors and Air Nigeria, cancelled their schedules. They gave the obscure reason of operational difficulties and the lack of planes on ground as we were made to understand by the continuity announcer at the local wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The majority of people I discussed the problem with were of the unfortunate and unhelpful opinion that it was business- as- usual for a local airline to maltreat their passengers by unnecessarily delaying or outrightly cancelling already scheduled flights with as much a silly reason as late refuelling by the flights under discussion as if to say that it is the duty of the intending air passengers to refuel the planes for these investors in the aviation industry in Nigeria.
One of my co-discussants, while we waited for over four hours before the plane heading to Enugu by Arik eventually landed and reluctantly decided to fly us to our destination, told me that these days, it will be suicidal for a serious minded or committed corporate personality to plan his/her schedules based on flight schedules by almost all the local airlines operating in Nigeria because of the fact that these airlines either were not ab-initio prepared for business because that they do not parade enough flights/planes or that they are not up and doing with maintenance of the few available planes. Some of their scheduled flights can be redirected to other juicy routes even when these airlines have collected the hard earned resources of the air passengers.
On this fateful day, Arik Air which prides itself as the ‘wings of Nigeria’ gave us three conflicting reasons for delaying the Enugu – bound flight for about four hours before takeoff from Abuja.
This situation is both reprehensible and pathetic and goes to show the level of disrespect the airline has for her passengers. The airline operators in Nigeria must change or be forced to change through series of court cases by some brave Nigerian air passengers.
Another notorious fact is that it is completely unacceptable that when air passengers, by circumstances beyond or within their control, miss their scheduled flights, they are made to go through the rigours of coughing out additional payments as penalties for missing these flights. But whenever these airlines unilaterally cancel the scheduled flights, the best they usually offer to their bewildered and heavily disappointed, but weak passengers, are some uncoordinated sonorous apologies.
Now, the challenge before these air passengers for allowing themselves to be subjected to this horrendous maltreatment by the owners of these airlines is that, not many persons in Nigeria have demonstrated the much desired passion to pursue genuine cases in competent courts of law to demand and obtain payment of heavy damages. I was, therefore, proud of one United States-based student of Nigerian origin who recently successfully pursued and won a landmark litigation against one of these funny foreign airlines from the Gulf countries.
The presiding judge of the Federal High Court in Lagos gave a judgment awarding damages of a little more than N3 million against the airline to be paid to this brave Nigerian student for missing an already scheduled appointment in Nigeria.
Onwubiko heads Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria.