Arik Air Resumes Operations After Agreement with Union

Following the agreement reached between the management of Arik Air and the aviation workers unions, the airline yesterday evening resumed flight operations, after over 10 hours of disruption by the unions.
This became possible after an exhaustive meeting at the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) headquarters in Lagos.

At the meeting which was attended by the Chairman of Arik, Sir Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide and the Director-General of NCAA who was represented by Director Operations and Training of NCAA, Capt. Abdullahi Sidi, it was agreed that the airline should resume flight operations after it was agreed that October salary would be paid on or before Friday, December 23 while November salary would be paid on or before December 31.
Arik Air and representatives of all the unions including NCAA signed the communiqué with the understanding that all agreed issues will be carried out.
Earlier, before the agreement was entered into, thousands of Arik Air passengers were stranded at the various airports the airline operate following the shutting of its operations by the aviation workers unions over non-payment of salary arrears of seven months without commitment to pay as at when due.
At the headquarters of the airline in Lagos, the workers were seen protesting and carrying placards calling on the management of the airline to pay them their salaries.
Some of the protesting workers were carrying placards with inscriptions like ‘’Pay us our salary because an angry man is an accident waiting to happen, others read, ‘’a worker deserves his pay’’, among others.
The unions comprising of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE and the Air Transport Services, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN directed the commencement of a joint strike action at Arik air with effect from 00:00hrs of Tuesday, December 20th, 2016.