The management of Arik Air has relieved 300 members of staff of their appointments.

This was announced in a statement by the airline on Friday.

It blamed the sacking on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

The press statement was titled, “Arik Air management declares 300 staff redundant”.

The company explained that a redundancy package would be provided for the affected workers with the help of the aviation unions.

The statement read in part, “Arising from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the constrained ability of the airline to complete heavy maintenance activities and return its planes to operations, stunted revenues against increasing operational costs, the management of Arik Air (In Receivership) has declared 300 staff members redundant to its current level of operations.

“The leadership of the impacted unions has been contacted to negotiate a redundancy package for the affected staff.”

The airline added that over 50 per cent of its workforce of over 1,600 staff have been on furlough in the past six months.

In a separate statement also forwarded to our correspondent by its Public Relations and Communications Manager, Banji Ola, the airline apologised to passengers whose travel plans were disrupted by the protest carried out by the National Union of Air Transport Employees on December 3, 2020.

The picketing disrupted operations in Lagos and prevented the airline from processing passengers at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Domestic Terminal 1 and 2.

Arising from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

abnot:


Well in this case ordinary travellers like me have always known about arik’s poor financial health but the management did everything to keep these employees on unpaid leave pending when things got better. Same employees continuously went to arik’s various outlets to disrupt operations and prevent customers from travelling.

In my opinion Nigerian aviation unions are one of the worst set of employees out there . Currently they are also holding the aviation minister to ransom for trying to concession some terminal buildings to offer better services to passengers. They prefer the current system where Nigeria’s airports are one of the worst in west Africa .

In 2003 knowing the kind of people that constituted the unions, Obasanjo forcefully used the police to shut down Nigerian airways and end the employment of everyone . It was anti-democratic but that was the only way he could stop the revenue leakage there.