Why Arik Air should take heed

Nigeria’s Arik Air, has no doubt paid its dues in airline business particularly in Nigeria, Africa and even outside the shores of the continent.

Two major things that have made the airline thick are its sophisticated and new generation machines that made up its large fleet and its strength in the number of routes it operates into across the country, Africa, UK and U.S.A.

Even though the airline came into existence 2006 in a controversial way as it was generally believed to have come out of the ashes of the former national carrier, the Nigeria Airways which was liquidated against the wish of many Nigerians then, one thing that cannot be denied is that it has done not only Nigeria but Africa as a whole proud as seen in the kind of airplanes it flies around the world which has to some extent rubbished the insinuation that aircraft owned by Nigerian airlines are “coffins.

Alas!, the good wind blowing everywhere for the airline seems to have suddenly been replaced with bitterness and condemnation from the same traveling public which once praised the airline to high heavens. The question is what has gone wrong?

Like a speed of wind, the good names Arik Air used to enjoy have been replaced with unpleasant names as witnessed in the operational  crisis the airline has continued to be enmeshed in as days go by.

For the major part of year 2016, the airline was crawling from one crisis to another traced to flight cancellations, flight delays, baggage delays, poor communications between it and its customers, violation of passengers’ rights, indebtedness, breakdown in communications between it and the aviation regulatory authorities; to mention but a few.

The controversy which started gradually however reached its peak towards the end of 2016 when the airline’s inaction brought tears and pains to many of its customers across the globe whose desire to celebrate the last Yuletide with their loved ones was shattered by the inability of Arik Air to airlift them hours or days behind schedule.

Many of the affected passengers including those on London, JFK, New York and Johannesburg, routes narrated how they were treated like animals by the airline officials who they accused of not communicating with them on what was going on even as they were left without compensations in line with the country’s Passengers’ Bill of Right.

The height of this mess came when the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) sluggishly intervened by slamming a N6 million fine on Arik just as it asked the airline to pay each of the passengers affected $150 as compensation.

The airline in its reaction accused the NCAA of high handedness even as it attributed the problem encountered on London route in particular to the decision to use smaller aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, to operate the Lagos-London Heathrow route due to maintenance on the wide-body A330-200 aircraft allocated on the route since one of its Airbus A330-200 aircraft had been hit by a handling company at John F Kennedy International Airport New York which triggered the B737-800 to be deployed on the Lagos-London route.

Those thinking that the controversy would have ended with 2016, must have made a mistake as the crisis has continued in 2017 as passengers continue to get stranded even on the domestic routes.

Amidst the crisis, many of the aggrieved passengers have though illegally taken laws into their hands as they beat up staff of Arik Air and at the same time damaged the airline and airport’s facilities.

Agreed that it is not Arik that has the challenges but the airline needs to ask itself the question of  how the other airlines have been able to manage similar crisis. The time has come for it to re-examine itself critically as it has become obvious that it has problems in critical areas.

The need for it to look inward becomes pertinent because of its leading role and how it started well but speedily now losing the goodwill.

Obviously, the issue of having challenges is not peculiar to Arik or any Nigerian carrier, what matters is the ability of that carrier to engage its passengers transparently and carry the relevant authorities along as this will go a long way in dousing any tension. Unfortunately, Arik Air is lacking in all these.

One disease that kills any business no matter how good it may be is bad image and poor communication which no airline or business that knows it’s onions should tolerate if such wants to remain.