FAAN Disobeys Court Order, Disrupts Arik Air’s Flight Operations Again
Arik Air's Boeing 737-800NG. Photo credit: www.arikair.com |
Nigeria’s largest airline; Arik Air has expressed displeasure
over the disruption of her flight operations by the Federal Airports Authority
of Nigeria (FAAN) in violation of a court order and apologised to its esteemed
passengers for any inconvenience experienced "due to the unwarranted disruption
and unlawful action by FAAN".
According to a statement from Arik Air ,both sides were reconciling payment
accounts between the institutions over the charges paid by Arik Air to
date and in this regard, Arik Air has been providing all the needed assistance
and cooperation to conclude the reconciliation process.
It however accused FAAN of showing total disregard for the
laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by carrying out such disruptive action
again.
Arik Air also disclosed that” In Suit No: FHC/L/CS/1558/2015
brought by FAAN against Arik Air before a Federal High Court in Lagos, the
court on 20 June, 2016 had ordered that both parties maintain status quo
ante-bellum until Ruling on the Ex-parte is delivered. The matter was further
adjourned to 10 October, 2016".
The statement continued “On several occasions in the past
weeks, Arik Air has equally served the order of the court to FAAN since they
claimed ignorance of the ruling. Blatant defiance of the laws of the country and
disrespect to the High Court should not be tolerated and we appeal to the
judiciary to intervene in this matter and take appropriate action to uphold the
laws of the nation. This unjustifiable disruption by FAAN has further
inconvenienced the travel plans of thousands of passengers who were already
affected due to the acute scarcity of aviation fuel (Jet A1) in the recent
weeks”.
The statement released by the airline also stated that FAAN has
once again “disrupted its operations at the General Aviation Terminal and International
Terminal of the, as
Workers of the agency prevented Arik Air from gaining access
to the Airside of both terminals”
The airline stated that FAAN prevented her workers from accessing the air-sides of the both the domestic and the International terminals of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos explaining that “Access to the Airside is critical
and fundamental to the airline’s operations for moving catering, supplies and
other sundry items to the aircraft, as well as the movement of its personnel to
ready the aircraft for departure”.
It continued that “This access is also necessary for the
airline to conduct secondary security screening, mandatory security checks and
for securing the aircraft at all times in line with International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards and recommended practice”
Arik Air added ‘’This is not the first time that FAAN has
taken the law into its own hands as it had resorted to such strong-arm tactics
against the airline in the past and most recently in May this year.
It is already in the public domain that Arik Air and FAAN have
a lingering disagreement on the long-standing and unsubstantiated claim by FAAN
of spurious indebtedness of the airline to the agency which is now before the
Federal High Court in Lagos, at the instance of FAAN”
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