Chinedu Eze
Lack of competence and expertise have been attributed to why Nigeria’s prime airline, Arik Air became moribund under the management of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and went down from having 3, 258 workers in 2017 to 500 and from 27 aircraft to barely operating five currently.
Arik Air was not only the biggest airline in West Africa then, it was also the airline that operated brand new aircraft and was reputed for its safety record but today, the airline has become almost moribund under the receivership of AMCON.
An insider and part of the founding management of the airline told THISDAY that incompetence, not understanding the aviation business were the major reasons why the airline went down from a major player to a struggling carrier.
“By the time AMCON took over Arik Air there were critical decision to be made about the airline operations. They needed to inject funds into the company to sustain it. Few months after its takeover some of the aircraft inherited were due for checks; so, the priority was supposed to be how to carry out checks on the aircraft but because they lack the expertise, their attention was drawn to other issues, like negotiating the loans with international financiers. The new management under receivership was supposed to be talking with engine manufacturers and lessors because what should be their objective was how to put the airline back to full operation and how to come out of receivership, but somehow they didn’t know the right thing to do and suppliers lost fate in them; a situation that made things very difficult,” he said.
Informed source said AMCON inherited 17 airworthy airplanes. Three out of these number needed minor repairs. The first one needed its nosewheel to be changed. The second one needed a change of its pitot tube, which is used to measure the speed of the wind and the third one needed its main wheel at the back to be changed.
The inside source disclosed that because the aircraft that needed checks were not maintained, many of them became AOG (aircraft on ground) and were no more airworthy for flight service.
“That was the first impact of lack of competence and expertise. They didn’t have the understanding of the business and in this industry if you make mistake it is difficult to correct. When this kind of thing happens, the manufacturers will start losing confidence in you. They saw a lot of money when they came and they thought the money would continue to come like that. For that to happen, their main priority would have been to keep as many of the airplanes flying,” the insider said.
Report indicated that AMCON established other companies and even attempted to kill Arik Air and cede the assets to another company, NG Eagle and Super Bravo and in doing that shirk off the debts owed by the company to aviation agencies, suppliers and others and that was after it had reduced Arik Air operations and operating aircraft.
