BY Mayowa Tijani
Roy Ilegbodu, the new Chief Executive Officer of Arik Air, says the new management of the airline refunds as much as N75 million per week in cancelled air tickets from the past administration.
Speaking in Lagos on Tuesday, the CEO said despite the huge debt handed over by old management, Arik,under his leadership, has retaken its place as the number one airline in Nigeria — in terms of number of passengers.
“We met this on ground when we came; a lot of people demanding refund for tickets they bought. We have been addressing that. We’ve actually made quite a lot of refunds,” Ilegbodu said.
“I would say, on the average, between N60 million and 75 million is paid on a weekly basis in terms of refund. That is not small, that is substantial considering the fact that while we are doing that, we are also having to inject funds into our current operations.
“Ideally, one would say you won’t even talk about anything in the past, because you need your funds to move forward, but we’ve actually thought through the whole situation and agreed that let’s do this, because this same passengers are the passengers we want to attract back to fly with us.
“I believe we have been doing well on that note. Some of the people that come daily are some of those that are not even aware that there is a system in place. So they probably didn’t come here since last year.
“By the time they come here and we talk to them, I’m sure they will be satisfied, and if we say we would pay them in a week, we would pay them in a week.”
He added that the airline has no plans yet to resume international flights, considering the huge debts owed to international organisations in the US, UK and Canada.
Ilegbodu said Arik flew about 3,000 passengers on Friday, April 28, 2017.
When the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) took over Arik in February, the airline operated about 30 aircraft with no spare parts.
The new management cut down the fleet to eight planes to meet up with safety requirements and regain customers and stakeholders confidence.
The new CEO says Arik will return to 14 planes by mid May, as it regains stability and concludes audit.
Currently, KPMG, one of the biggest audit firms in the world is auditing the company’s account as managed by the last management to determine level of indebtedness and chart a course forward.
Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, says the country is speaking to investors on the sale of one of the airlines taken over by AMCON. AMCON has invested N1.5 billion in the Arik since February, 2017.
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