Arik Air is cutting down on the number of its daily scheduled flights in Nigeria due to a depletion in the number of aircraft in its fleet, its spokesman, Adebanji Ola has said. Ola told journalists in Lagos that the decision to take some ailing aircraft out for maintenance and repair abroad had seen a depletion in fleet capacity, but he wouldn’t disclose the number of affected aircraft. He however appealed for passenger understanding saying some flights on some routes would be cancelled or rescheduled with the attendant inconveniences to passengers. Arik Air fleet has witnessed a reduction in number in the last two weeks due to the fact that some aircraft have been flown overseas to Approved Maintenance Organisation (AMO) in Europe,” said Ola.
“The airline has carried out adjustments on its scheduled operations to cope with the exigencies of its aircraft that are on mandatory maintenance and the management in order to maintain schedule integrity and ensure flights depart on time, has to cut down on the number of flights operated daily,” Ola added.
Ola who said the airline takes aircraft maintenance very seriously assures customers that the affected aircraft will start returning from maintenance in the next few days while scheduled operations will be back to normal in a couple of weeks. The airline appealed to its passengers to bear with it at this period while assuring that their safety and comfort will never be compromised.