Arik Air Unveils New Airbus A330-200, Starts New Routes

Arik Air yesterday marked its 7th year in service even as it unveiled its second Airbus A330-200 which will be used to boost international operations.
Arik Air managing director, Mr Chris Ndulue, said the airline plans to start services to Jeddeh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Sao Poula, Brazil.
He said, “Our motivation for planning to operate these routes is that Nigerians want to go there. There are enough passengers to warrant our operations to these cities. We need to tap into opportunities flying into these cities will bring. We have added two wide bodied aircraft to make the operations viable.”
He said the airline has come a long way during its seven years of service including the creation of more than 2500 jobs, connecting several cities in Nigeria and the training of pilots on wide body aircraft among others.
Ndulue said “The airline has an extremely strong market position in terms of the scale of operations, number of destinations served, fleet age size and choice of schedules and frequencies and has earned its position of a true Nigerian carrier”.
He listed some of the airline’s many achievements within the last one year to also include inauguration of service to Kinshasha, winning the Leadership Newspapers’ Award, taking delivery of two Airbus A330-200 aircraft and launch of user friendly website among others.
He also said Arik Air has carried about 13 million passengers in seven years. He lamented the state of infrastructure in the industry and urged government to invest in airport perimeter fencing even as he asked aviation authorities to accord Arik Air some respect especially in the area of giving it space to operate.      
Ndulue disclosed that the new aircraft in its fleet is about five years old and was leased to strengthen “our international operations until we begin to take delivery of the aircraft we have placed orders for”.  Sir Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide, chairman of the airline tasked the government over multiple taxation on airlines even as he said Nigerians should learn to patronise indigenous airline because it will enable their growth.

Culled from Leadership