Air travel into and within Nigeria threatened as Arik plans to suspend its operations

ARIK Air plans to suspend its domestic and international flights today crippling air travel in and out of the country due to the current fuel scarcity that has led to the limited availability of aviation fuel over the past week.

 

For about a week now, fuel has been in short supply across Nigeria as petroleum deliveries have been limited as the sector reels under the weight of planned removal of subsidies. This has led to long queues at petrol stations, an inability of many people to fuel their generators and now air traffic faces a threat.

 

If Arik reduces its flights, hundreds of air passengers may be stranded at the various airports across the country as the airline controls about 60% of the Nigerian aviation market. Arik's managing director Chris Ndulue, said the airline has been operating just 20% of its daily flights due to the scarcity of aviation fuel, particularly in Lagos, its major hub.

 

Daily, Arik operates about 120 flights on its domestic routes from Lagos and Abuja to most of Nigeria's state capitals. More than any other airline, it has thus been hit very hard by the scarcity of aviation fuel and its international operations have also been affected.

 

Mr Ndulue said: “ This aviation fuel scarcity started last week Thursday and since then, we have had to scale down our operations due to the non-availability of fuel. We have had to cancel and reschedule flights, as for instance we couldn’t depart for Dubai yesterday due to this scarcity.

 

"It is becoming impossible to continue, so we will suspend flights operation from tomorrow until when aviation fuel becomes available. It is the contingency arrangement for fuel during this scarcity that has taken us this far  but we may not be able to continue."

 

Last week, Arik Air raised the alarm about the negative impact of the current aviation fuel scarcity on its operations. However, nothing has been done so far the address the problem as all petroleum products remain in short supply.

 

"We have been losing revenue by cancelling flights and not operating at full capacity. We require about 500,000 to 800,000 litres of fuel daily to power both our domestic and international routes and our international flights have had to go to Ghana, sometimes Cotonou and even Togo to get fuel before proceeding to London or the United States,” Mr Ndulue added.

 

Signs of the scarcity started manifesting on Thursday, April 23, 2015 when marketers were unable to meet the demands of the airlines. Arik has been getting round the problem by buying fuel in neighbouring countries but it looks like the airline will no longer be able to afford this now.