By Mr. Akaninyene Inyang

Dear Mr. Brunner: First of all, I want to thank Mr. Dele (Supervisor in Arik Airways New York office) who took my call on 09 August 2010 . Per our conversation, I am following up that phone call with a formal letter of complaint regarding my recent experience on Arik Airways.

I have included with this letter a copy of my ticket on your airline, flight 108 and 107, flight cancellation  notice given to passengers at Lagos International Airport.  Also included with this letter is a copy of my New York itinerary with appropriate email confirmations from orbitz and Delta Airline Ticket & Invoice. Below is a written account of my experience as explained to Mr. Dele over the phone:

   On  5th August 2010, my daughter (3 years old) and I arrived Lagos International Airport from Calabar (local airport in Nigeria) at 1730hrs to board a scheduled return International flight to JFK New York with Arik Airways (Arik Air 107). We were informed (alongside other passengers) that the flight was canceled due to aircraft technical issues. We were told to return the next day for a tentative flight that was scheduled to depart by 1800hrs. The Arik Airways Airport Manager, Ms. Adaobi Molokwu then told us that Arik Airways will not provide accommodation & feeding for passengers and will not be liable for connecting passengers who will miss their connecting flight in New York JFK due to the flight cancellation. Ms. Molokwu was extremely uncooperative in assisting passengers or addressing our concerns. The same attitude was exhibited by other Arik Airways staffs that were present. One pregnant Arik Airways staff member said “when we the passengers were tried of complaining, we will return home”.  They ignored us, while they all stared at their computer screens. They would not respond to many of our questions. This lack of concern from Arik Airways airport management and staff, angered the passengers greatly and resulted in several heated exchanges. Due to all the frustration from them ignoring us, I became vocal and demanded answers to our concerns by turning the computer monitor away from the closest Arik staff. This led to the staff  member jumping to his feet to start a fight with me and the other passengers. In the process I was shoved into a 3ft wide X 4ft long window, which broke and injured me. I was bleeding heavily from my right hand.  The commotion inside Arik Airways office alerted the Nigerian Aviation Authority, so they came to find-out what was going on. Arik Airways did not provide any medical treatment for my injuries, the Aviation Authority were the ones that called in a paramedic to clean my cuts.

            The Aviation Authority on arrival calmed  all of us down and moved all passengers including Ms. Molokwu, to their office and we commenced dialogue for the first time since the ordeal began. During the meeting, Ms. Molokwu still insisted that Arik Airways will not provide accommodation but the Aviation authority reminded Ms. Molokwu that it is the responsibility of the Airline to provide accommodation for all passengers in situations like this. Ms. Molokwu was forced to oblige and agreed to make accommodation available. However, once we were outside the Aviation authority’s office, Ms. Molokwu decided to provide accommodation to passengers that could prove that they entered Lagos airport via a transport mode that originated outside of Lagos . This decision further infuriated the passengers. After several rounds of another heated argument between passengers and Arik Airways Staffs, some of us were finally taken to a sub-standard hotel at about 2200hrs. We were reminded that our flight would depart the next day by 1800hrs tentatively.
 
The next day 06 August 2010, a bus picked over 30 of us from the hotel, and we arrived the airport at about 1500hrs. When I tendered our U.S. passport (my daughter & I) to the check-in staff, he turned it over to another man that was standing with Ms. Molokwu, who confiscated them. He walked up to me accompanied by Ms. Molokwu and introduced himself as the person in-charge of Arik Airways security. He commanded us to hand over our luggage to him and then follow him. At that point Ms. Molokwu looked at me and my daughter and said “I am going to teach you a lesson”. They took us away from other passengers to a secluded room. While there I was informed by the Arik security officer that a compliant was filed against me for damages to the company’s property. He then told me that I had to pay the equivalent of $1,200 USD (180,000 Naira, Nigerian currency) before we could fly. The Aviation authority official present reminded him that this case was settled yesterday during the meeting we had but the Arik Airways security staff insisted that Ms. Molokwu had lodged a fresh compliant.  We were detained for about 3hrs without access to food, or water. Our luggage was taken away from our sight, our passport was held as ransom for us to pay the alleged damages to Arik Airways property.
 
For fear of my 3 year old daughter becoming too traumatized from the stress we were going through, I offered to get a guarantor for them but Ms. Molokwu accused me of trying to run away by playing tricks on her, she then said she will not let us get away. The Aviation Authority personnel then pleaded with her to be merciful and understand that we are still her customers and that she was making a mountain out of a mole hill. Seeing her rigid position, I then offered to pay her with my credit card but she outwardly laughed at me and said that Arik Airways ‘does not use credit cards’. She said she will only receive cash from me. I reminded her that I used the same card to buy my ticket but she replied by saying that it was done on the internet and not in the office. I scrambled and came up with $700 USD and offered it to her but she turned around and said I was wasting her time. I looked down to my daughter and I could see the pain she was going through. She was uncomfortable throughout our stay in the hotel the previous night, she refused to eat any food offered, and now we were under detention for daring to ask for our right as air passengers.
 
Out of compassion, Mr. S.M Mamman (Aviation Authority Secretary) gave me $500 USD of his own money (as a loan) just to free us from the abuse Ms. Molokwu was meting out to us. Mr. Mamman however made Ms. Molokwu promise to put us on the flight leaving by 1800hrs for JFK as a condition for receiving the money. She agreed but after her security officer took the $1,200 USD, she then said that It was no longer possible for us to make the 1800hrs flight. I requested a receipt of payment for what she claimed I had damaged but I was told that the agent that gives out receipts was not available. She (Ms Molokwu) then said we had to stay behind and join another Arik flight on Sunday 08Aug10. I requested to be put on a Delta flight that was leaving in 4 ½ hrs but they just ignored my daughter and I. Ms. Molokwu walked away and left us behind with her security officer. I then enquired if it was okay now to release our passport to us which he did. They left us to cater for our transportation and lodging needs. Not one staff of Arik management apologized for all the trouble they put us through; rather we were treated as criminals.
 
            I then took my daughter to Delta booking office and paid $4,397.43 USD (with the same credit card Ms. Molokwu refused to take) for a one way ticket from Lagos – New Orleans . I was reliably informed by another passenger Mr. Verem Turugty who was also a witness to our ordeal at Lagos, that the Arik flight that left Lagos at 1800hrs, arrived JFK by 2330hrs on 07Aug10. Most of the passengers on that flight including him ended up sleeping at the airport due to the arrival time and the lack of out-going flight from JFK at that time. This was further compounded by the lack of Arik Airways representative at JFK to attend to passengers needs. Mr. Turugty told me that he could not find one passenger on that flight that was pleased with the treatment they received. On his part he is willing to testify to the accuracy of the account of event I have narrated.
 
            This is the first time I have flown with Arik Airways. Our departure Flight on 19Jul10 was about 2hrs late to depart JFK, which meant that, our flight was late in arriving Lagos , Nigeria . We ended up missing our local connecting flight with Aero contractor to Calabar. We were stranded in Lagos that night and had to pay $233 USD to acquire another flight the next day for Calabar. The cancellation of the return flight on 05Aug10 meant that our connecting flight from New York – New Orleans was missed, which cost us $299.80 USD to purchase. The stress and strain this ordeal has taken on my family is unimaginable; my wife was on the phone all night & day on 05Aug & 06Aug and was forced to take 2days off from work (losing over $750 USD in revenue plus cost of local/international calls), talking with different travel agents trying to arrange flights for us.  My parent’s in-laws and parents in Nigeria were very worried about our fate especially when they couldn’t reach me by phone while we were under detention. Financially we are at a loss of over $7000 USD plus the pain and suffering we have experienced. My 3 year old daughter told my wife on our return that “she does not want to visit Nigeria again”. Her statement broke my heart because she was very excited to see her grand parents before our departure. I don’t know what my wife and I will do to help her get over the psychological damage she went through, we are also at a loss reggaerding how to recover financially and emotionally from this sad event.  I will never wish this experience on my worst enemy.  

For my aforementioned troubles, I expect, at a minimum, that the Management of Arik Airways will do the right thing  by complying with Article 19 of the Montreal Convention, governing international flights and credit me back for my financial losses immediately. If this matter is handled properly, It will help start healing the wounds this ordeal has done to my family.

            I appreciate your attention in this matter.

Best Regards,

Mr. Akaninyene Inyang
email: akan4uk@yahoo.co.uk 
Robert Brunner
VP Marketing, Arik Airways U.S.
One Penn Plaza
Suite 1416
New York, NY. 10119

Both parties are at fault. If a customer wishes to be treated inthe same manner as the attendants and management of the air line then no one is allowed to "engage" in a scuffle with airline staff. People must learn to control their emotions, you wouldn't ahve repeated the same action in the US knwing fuly well you would be arrested and prosecuted, therby exarcebating your situation. Touching airline equipment is illegal and uncalled for no matter the situaiton,Thats crossing the line. there are procedures put in place to avoid these sort of jungel behaviour.

Likewise a personal vendetta by the airline manager should be severely dealt with even thoughshe was in her legal rights to file a complaint on the customer.

The airline is not your slave and is not obligated to do your biding. You are in Nigeria and should be aware of your surroundings without expecting the same hight standard of customer relations. If you have a problem then run for office n the country and change things, otherwise the drama that insued concerning the ignoring of passengers is a commont occurence in Nigeria.

It's a very sad story. You still handled the situation well in my opinion. I don't agree with Morpheus24 at all. How can you say an airline staff ignoring their passengers is right? That was a total no no! If that had happened to me, the whole airport would've gone up in serious mayhem! Arik should apologise wholeheartedly to Mr. Akaninyene Inyang and offer to pay him back the $1,200 and more for the stress they put him and his daughter through!

morpheus24:

Both parties are at fault. If a customer wishes to be treated inthe same manner as the attendants and management of the air line then no one is allowed to "engage" in a scuffle with airline staff. People must learn to control their emotions, you wouldn't ahve repeated the same action in the US knwing fuly well you would be arrested and prosecuted, therby exarcebating your situation. Touching airline equipment is illegal and uncalled for no matter the situaiton,Thats crossing the line. there are procedures put in place to avoid these sort of jungel behaviour.

Likewise a personal vendetta by the airline manager should be severely dealt with even thoughshe was in her legal rights to file a complaint on the customer.

The airline is not your slave and is not obligated to do your biding. You are in Nigeria and should be aware of your surroundings without expecting the same hight standard of customer relations. If you have a problem then run for office n the country and change things, otherwise the drama that insued concerning the ignoring of passengers is a commont occurence in Nigeria.

complete baldadash. you are as heartless and moronic as the arik airline staff. no once of sympathy flowing through your veins to start with. unless you are an arik air representative.

the treatment poster suffered by arik as explained in his post is an outrage and despicable. i had similar experience with them although no where near that of poster. the behaviour of these airline staff makes one wonder if nigeria is a jungle with humans behaving like animals running around like rabid dogs.

arik tried to avoid their legal responsibility to the passangers by providing accommodation and food in the case of cancelled flight that was arik` fault, their staff assaulted a customer, they seemingly falsely detained a passager and a minor [3 years old] and illegally obtained money from them, [how was the $1,200 arrrived at, passager did not have right to appeal, no receipt was provided], in addition to threatening the above passager by the so-called mrs whatever.

arik need to make an unreserved apology asap. if this were british airways or one of the "oyinbo airlines" you would all be crying racism.
besides these are enough grounds to seek substantial damages.

@Morpheus,its like u've never traveled in ur life or do u think going to US islike going from Oshodi to ojota.u should realize its 18-24hours flight and for sumone to delay u for extra one day without
information,food and wdetained u is the worst thing that can ever happen to human being, na the whole airport must go. And wot does that has to do wif politic?av never insulted anyone in my life but am proud to say morpheus24,u are really a dumb ass!
@Madejibo,I really feel for u and ur daughter.I went tru almost same in Abuja last 2 week(Sept 2010 but not as worst as urs.I have not recovered from the stress up till nw.We had to beat n lock their staff in the office before they started contacting Lagos which avnt gotten any info aswell.to cut the story short they promised us the next day and we were taken to Sheraton.On getting to the hotel,the manager refused to book us claiming Arik was owing 30million n we were made to stand there for solid hours with no fone,no money as most of us gave our money and phone out,then hell loose as most of us were tough before the decided to accommodate us a on the that we must nt eat more than 5000naira worth of food though I ate 10k.
I lost over £500 cos I could work for 2day n almost lost my job.Am currently working with my lawyer.I have been there,I really understand where u coming from especially with a child.pls ignore the chicken brain Orpheus or mofo whatever his name is.he or she should knw this kinda situation can nt happen abroad

(Am using ma mob n can't scroll up/down to edit any error)

morpheus24:

Both parties are at fault. If a customer wishes to be treated inthe same manner as the attendants and management of the air line then no one is allowed to "engage" in a scuffle with airline staff. People must learn to control their emotions, you wouldn't ahve repeated the same action in the US knwing fuly well you would be arrested and prosecuted, therby exarcebating your situation. Touching airline equipment is illegal and uncalled for no matter the situaiton,Thats crossing the line. there are procedures put in place to avoid these sort of jungel behaviour.

Likewise a personal vendetta by the airline manager should be severely dealt with even thoughshe was in her legal rights to file a complaint on the customer.

The airline is not your slave and is not obligated to do your biding. You are in Nigeria and should be aware of your surroundings without expecting the same hight standard of customer relations. If you have a problem then run for office n the country and change things, otherwise the drama that insued concerning the ignoring of passengers is a commont occurence in Nigeria.

Please let's not be in a hurry to jump to a hasty conclusion and make the wrong judgement or pronouncement. This is clearly an injustice by Arik staff on a customer. Even the international community here in Nigeria have condemned the act, and are aware that such could hardly happen in a developed country - see link below:

http://www.oyibosonline.com/sm2/index.php?topic=10103.msg121048#msg121048

Like I said in my previous post on this, and with all due respect, I am usually very cautious whenever I am about to have any thing to do with ladies with prefix "Ms", therefore I am really not surprise by the arrogant attitude of Ms. Molokwu. I believe she must be very conformtable (curiously??) in her position within the Arik organisation for her to treat customers in such a rude manner. Someone obviously very high within the Arik management must be playing the tune for which she is enjoying the dance. What a shame!!

While I feel for the young child who was incovinienced as a result of the parents lack of sensibility, I still hold to the contention that the Arik mamger, wicked or not wicked were in their rights to prosecute this particular individual inrespective of the frustration they felf regarding the issue. She exercised a legal procedure to punish the passenger and they were powerless cause of course she had the upper hand, consdiering its LEGALITY.

Knowing fully well that you are carryng a small child with you would make you cautious in engaging in arguments that result in physical altrecations tha could result in your injury and incapicitation thereby leaving your child in a vunerable situation. Tis irreponsible. i cannot excuse the passenger in this instance. the above letter is obviously a one sided story aimed at arousing sympathy from the reader.

A sensible person would have rallyed the customers to storm the aviation authorities offices and demand that Arik fulfill its obligation, if deemed legal to accomodate its passengers for the inconvinience.

please put sentiments aside and think logically, while I am not siding wih Arik which was stated in my first (post) obviously some of you tend to reason on inpulse instead of engaging in emotianl intellgence. The situation could have been managed properly by both sides.

Again it is the fault of the passenger who's aggravation caused his/her own situation in the first place. When dealing with a legal entitiy, you cannot resort to "naija" routine of shouting till you get your way. The air line is aslo at fault for bad customer service pratices an should be takn up on that as was done in teh letter address to Arik. Some of you shuold try runnig a business before opening yor mouths. Busines sis business, again the airline is not your father

Ps i don nt work for any airline

morpheus24 ,Are you for real?

"Business is Business" indeed,Let them continue treating their passengers and lets see whether they will have any business to run.Bottom line customer aggression or not Arik handled this matter in a very appalling way.

Did you read their rejoinder at all,absolute rubbish.They could have and should have done better

What a shame! Bloody irritatants these days become airline officials!
I used to think it was called the 'Hospitality' business?? Nothing Hospitable in that action at all!!!

Africans know nothing about customer service! Blimey! I can't believe they had you cough up that much
money. WOW

Arik should understand we paid for the service and we expect to get value for our money .Arik always come out to make u think they are doing a favour .I hate Arik as am yet to recover from the stress I made go through.Arik avnt seen anything yet , Rubbish,

Y wont dey lose N120BN yearly to foreign airlines.Am realy sory bowt ur terrible encounter but if i was D 1,I wuld cause yawa in such a way dat Nobody's gona fly outta dat nasty crap called Murtala airport.Jst imagine D money d pax had 2 cough out? Wer wil dat 1 come out from? Datz y I wil never fly Arik & wont advice anybody to.Gud thang i choose Emirates!
(u wulda been berra off wiv DELTA or AIR FRANCE)

morpheus24, wait until u encounter a similar experience.

The guy didn't say he vandalized any property of the airline. He said "Due to all the frustration from them ignoring us, I became vocal and demanded answers to our concerns by turning the computer monitor away from the closest Arik staff". Turning the screen shouldn't have in any way attracted such reaction from the staff talk less of fining the guy to the tune of sum of 1200usd (with no receipt meaning it went into the receiver's pocket).

What's bad is bad. In my own opinion, Arik played a bad one there. The guy should get a good lawyer (in the US) and pursue this.