Maureen Ihua-Maduenyi
Arik Air’s international passengers on
Tuesday shut down the carrier’s check-in counter at the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport, Lagos for failing to deliver their luggage days
after they arrived from London. A similar incident occurred on Monday.
An eyewitness said the counter was taken
over by the angry passengers, who prevented those billed to jet out
with the airline on Tuesday from checking in, while two of the airline’s
workers were also allegedly beaten up and hospitalised.
One of the aggrieved passengers, who spoke with our correspondent, said he arrived Nigeria on Friday without his luggage.
He said the management of the airline
asked all the affected passengers to return on Saturday but that by
Tuesday afternoon, he had yet to get his luggage.
The passenger lamented, “Arik has been
taking us for granted. We boarded their aircraft from London to Nigeria
on Friday, only for us to get here to find out that they left our
luggage behind. They asked us to come and get our belongings on
Saturday; we have been coming here since then and today is Tuesday.
“On Sunday, we met one of their
operations managers, who promised that the issue would be resolved by
Monday, but nothing has been done.”
Arik’s Lagos to London Tuesday flight
scheduled for noon was disrupted by the aggrieved passengers, which led
the airline to subsequently cancel it.
A passenger, who was supposed to be on
the cancelled flight, told our correspondent that the airline had to
check the intending travellers into a hotel in the evening when it
became obvious that the aggrieved customers would not be pacified, with a
promise to fly out of the country by midnight.
Arik’s spokesperson, Mr. Adebanji Ola,
who confirmed the incident in a statement, said that over the past days,
the airline had been using a smaller aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, to
operate the Lagos-London Heathrow route due to maintenance on the
wide-bodied A330-200 aircraft allocated to the route.
He said, “One of the airline’s Airbus
A330-200 aircraft was hit by a handling company at the John F. Kennedy
International Airport, New York on Thursday, December 1, 2016
consequently triggering the B737-800 to be deployed on the Lagos-London
route.
“In order to avoid cancellation of the
Lagos-London Heathrow flights, an alternative B737-800 aircraft had to
be allocated on the route to minimise the inconvenience to booked
passengers. The airline was constrained in capacity from a wide-body
A330-200 aircraft to a narrow-body B737-800 aircraft and thus had to
leave some of the passengers’ luggage behind in London.
“Passengers were, however, duly informed
of this capacity restriction at the check-in desk at the London
Heathrow Airport and were advised of the possibility that some of their
luggage will have to be sent on subsequent flights as per space
availability.”
He added that due to capacity
restrictions on the smaller B737-800 aircraft, the airline had to drop
some of the luggage in order to accommodate the maximum number of
passengers.
“To this end, an extra aircraft was also
operated to London Heathrow on Sunday, December 4, 2016 to accommodate
all passengers and some outstanding luggage.”
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