Arik Air celebrates 10yrs of exceptional flight services
...aims for more routes and robost fleet
Chairman of Arik Air, Joseph Arumeni-Ikhide (middle)
Arik Air, the largest airline
in West and Central Africa has projected that it would increase the number of
aircraft in the airline’s fleet from 28 to 52 in 2025.
This is just as the airline said it carried 19 million passengers
in the last 10 years.
He said that Arik Air is now the market leader and the largest
carrier in the region in terms of number of aircraft, capacity deployed,
network and number of flights operated, having safely transported over 19
million passengers.
“In 2006, we flew just 29, 363 passengers. As at September 30,
2016, we have flown 19,543,951 passengers. That is the entire population of Kano,
Imo, Delta and Kwara combined” He said.
The Managing Director OF Arik Air, Mr Chris Ndulue made this known
while speaking at a media briefing in Lagos to mark the 10th anniversary of the
airline that commenced flight operations in October 30, 2006.
He stated that the road to the airline’s 10th anniversary going
has not been easy, adding that it took the collective support of Arik staff,
the media for the airline to get to where it is today.
The Managing Director attributed the phenomenal growth of the airline
to its business model which is based on modern equipment and new technology,
high standards of maintenance and connectivity.
He stated that, given the airline’s dominant position in the
aviation market today along with current and future planned capacity, it has
the capacity to
According to him, “In the coming years, we hope to maintain our
market leadership and our growth strategy involves substantially increasing our
fleet from 28 aircraft today to 52 aircraft by 2025.
On routes development, Ndulue said, “On route development, we are
also looking at starting new routes and we will update our customers with
details in the New Year.”
The Arik Air Managing Director stated that 10 years on, the
airline had delivered on its promises of operating the youngest fleet in West
Africa with an average hull age of seven and eight years, creating employment
opportunities and partnering with top maintenance providers such as Lufthansa
Technik, Lufthansa Cityline and Samco Engineering under full “turn-key” maintenance
service contracts from inception to date.
Recalled that Arik Air started scheduled flights on October 30,
2006 with only three daily flights between Lagos and Abuja now operates an
average of 110 daily flights across a network of 18 domestic, 10 regional and
three international destinations including Johannesburg (South Africa),
London Heathrow (UK) and New York JFK (USA).
Taking a retrospective look on the airline, Ndulue said, “In 2006,
we flew just 29, 363 passengers. As at September 30, 2016, we have flown
19,543,951 passengers. That is the entire population of Kano, Imo, Delta and
Kwara combined.”
On the challenges facing the domestic airlines including Arik Air,
he mentioned the lack of Foreign Exchange, high cost of aviation fuel, adding
that the effect of forex is that it affects the cost of operations.
Ndulue hinted that while oil prices went down, aviation fuel, he
said increased drastically, calling on the Federal Government to assist
Nigerian airlines to survive the present economic recession.
On expansion, the managing director said that the airline will in
due in no distance time expand its operations to Asia, Middle East, Latin
America, Europe and East Africa.
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