chaircover:

LOL on your way back from Lagos, you had better be prepared to be tossed into a boiling plane & sit on the tarmac without any AC for half an hour. You will sweat like a Christmas goat, so make sure that your vest is clean cos you will be removing your shirt

From what I gather they dont turn on the engines which in turn powers the AC until they are just about to depart. Some people say is it because they want to conserve fuel, some people say that it is because the air conditioning system is malfunctioning & cannot work independently of the engines. What I did gather though is that this has been happening for a while.

Also Remember to take your own entertainment with you (laptop, Ipad, Ipod, books and magazines) too because there is no entertainment system on board.

Now I know why there were no oyinbos on our way out and only 2 on our way back and the 2 were not even "original" oyinbos LOL. We try to be patriotic but we are constantly kicked in the teeth.

As for me, Ive decided to forget the 30kg allowance and travel with half decent airlines in future.

Good luck on your return flight.

chaircover:

You are right o! I dont know jack about aeroplanes and I was only going by what their own staff including the captain said regarding the engines and air conditioning.

If you know me well, you will know that I give almost all the airlines a long rope to pull. Why? because we all have bad hair days and even the emirates that everyone goes on about will on occasion dish out shoddy service and delays.

In this case, there seems to be a lot of ongoing issues with ARIK. The air conditioning problem according to what the other passengers sitting around me said has been on for a while, so has the lack of a working entertainment system.

As for being mentally washed by oyinbos or whatever you call it makes me smile cos very few people in my situation are as core Naija as I am.

Many of the oyinbo peeps are on business trips and their tickets are paid for by their companies. It is the companies responsibility to ensure that their staff are safe and have a reasonable level of comfort and whether you like to accept it or not that is a marker. The company I work for immediately change suppliers if they feel that the staff are not being given a good service. Its as simple as that.

I have traveled on all the airlines that do the Lagos - London route except Marok and Afryique and[b] I can hand on heart tell you that the ARIK experience was the worst of them all, but that is just my own personal opinion which I am allowed to view.[/b]

Omo_Tier1:

Arrant nonsense! They reasons stated above smacks of someone who have little or no knowledge of aircraft designs and operations. You do not use the Engines to power the on-board cooling systems when you are on the tarmac! You use the APUs and you can not use the engine to cool your aircraft JUST before departure. You only 'BLEED' air from the engine for cooling in-flight. It is NOT normal to bleed air from the engine when on the tarmac even though it does happen. Just to add, engines are turned on well before departure for standard 'engine start up and departure procedures'.

Your reasons as started that they want to save fuel is complete tosh! Aircraft have what we call FUEL BURN weight which is a most for aircrafts to ground handling control and stability during taking especially on the A340-500.

So the 'oyinbos' are now the standards to know if an airline is good or bad? How many 'oyinbos' do you find on Emirates, Qatar air yet are these airlines not the pacesetters? I think some of us are still suffering from the mental injury of self degeneration the Brits dished out to us!

No one is saying Arik hasn't got issues to sort out, but I think some of us are trying so hard to paint them even 'darker' than the devil whereas if same had happened with other airlines especially those owned by the Europeans hadly do we speak out.

I remember when I was in T2 at Heathrow and a couple of Nigerians rushed down to Arik stand to try and book tickets 'cos British Airways connected them from Manchester but their flight was delayed for over 2Hrs and they missed the connecting flight from T5 to Lagos. BA told them to wait till next morning when they would be sorted out and they barely could utter a word. And I thought if this was Arik, they would be shouting high heavens.

@ Poster, do your checks very well and understand why you flight was delayed by Arik  for 6 hours as claimed. Or did Arik not give you reasons for the delay?

Are u a pilot?  

nikkygal:

@ Omo Tier 1

I have to agree with Chaircover on this one that in recent times, Arik have been boarding their passengers into hot boiling planes,

I've not flown with them on their LOS-LHR route but on their local flights, LOS-PHC, to be precise, I have encountered this more than 5 times in the last 2months, We are always boarded into an extremely hot plane with excuses about a faulty a/c even though most pple say they are trying to conserve fuel.

You need to understand the magnitude of the heat in question here! With a fully packed plane of about 130 pple! OMG! Terrible! Infact on one of those flights (an early morning flight to PH), they confirmed that the plane just arrived from LHR that morning. So you can just imagine,

They might have challenges but TBH, I think their customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

My 2cents!

odiaero:

Are u a pilot?  

@ Topic, there must be a reason for that

On my last BA trip, the entertainment didn't work too on half the plane

chaircover:

Yes you are right . . I forgot about Iberia. No I haven't contemplated them because I dont fancy a 6 hour stop over.

Now back to the cooling system. I travelled on the 15th Nov so hopefully someone on that flight can bear me witness to this. Before we boarded ARIK staff told us that the crew were stuck in traffic and so the engines cannot be switched on and therefore there will be no airconditiong system when we board.

We were boarded anyway and there was fracas in the plane and people started getting agitated due to the heat and eventually the captain announced an apology and said that the air conditioning will be put on as soon as he starts the engines

Half way through the flight he came on again and apologized, this time saying that there was a malfunction with the airconditioning system and that he had to make a decision of either canceling the flight or boarding us all like that which is a totally different story from what the ARIK ground staff told us.

I was sitting in front of a doctor who told me that he travels every week on ARIK and it is the same excuse/explanation and it maybe be because they were trying to conserve fuel. Like I said I no jack about planes so his explanation may or may not be true/valid, however it doesnt take away the fact that the plane was hot when we boarded and there is some sort of problem somewhere.

On my way out half the entertainment system did not work and on my way back none of the systems worked. BTW no headphones were handed out and no announcement/apology made on the way back but thankfully I was prepared & kept myself busy for the flight.

On my last BA trip, the entertainment didn't work too on half the plane, so I do accept that sometimes these things do break down, however the crew and the captain himself apologized severally. They tried rebooting it twice and in the end they said that they were taking the whole thing offline as it wasn't fair on the passengers who didn't have entertainment. It was a night flight so I wasn't really bothered.

Sometimes it is not the lack of an item but the service. In spite of passengers being so hot and angry, and instead of the crew pacifying the customers & the screaming kids, they proceeded to carry on with their safety drill and some people were shouting them down & refused to listen. At that point I would have imagined that the priority would be to make the customers comfortable and then proceed with the safety drill.

Like I said, this is my own personal experience of the flight and since I dont fly with them everyday, I dont know if this is the norm, but as for me it has put me off. I do try to be patriotic when I can & I am quite rugged but one has to draw the line somewhere. There is no way I will knowingly put my kids on a 6 hour flight knowing that there is a possibility that they wont have any entertainment for the duration.

Dare I ask you the last time that you flew ARIK? cos things may have changed since then

Konnektions146:

i ve really learnt so much from this thread, thanks to Omo-tier and chaircover, but come to think of it, y is ARIJ like this?

I am no fan of Arik Air but i try to be a little patriotic, but they are just not  it, i just wish Aero Contractors has got the capabilities of flying those relatively Long Haul trips,

but lets hope they get better.

Omo_Tier1:

For real, long hauls are no child's play! The politics involved is such that you have to be a money bag to do long hauls! Aero hasn't got it, so let them do Air Nigeria style, regional please

ode remo:

Guys , try to change your flight@abj arik office and u will encounter nija customer service big tym.tried it 2wice ,'paid 40k and waited 6hrs just for that.
Pls i beg u guys not to knock b.a ohh.
Flew with them last oct, plane was overbookked, got paid 520 pound instantly and lodged in one of the 5 star hotel around the airport.
Damn , was praying that same plane willbe overbooked next day.
wld love to pick 520 daily for overbooking.