For Arik Air, an airline notorious for flight cancellations, luggage misplacement and non payment of staff salaries, the day of reckoning has finally come. The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, Thursday cracked down the the beleaguered airline by  taking its operations. Jude Nwauzor, AMCON spokesperson, confirmed the development to newsmen in Lagos.
Nwauzor said the airline would now be managed by Roy Ilegbodu, an aviation expert under the receivership of Oluseye Opasanya, SAN. He said the government decided to intervene because Arik Air is immersed in heavy debt burden that is threatening to ground its operations. “For some time now, the airline, which carries about 55 per cent of the load in the country, has been going through difficult times that are attributable to its bad corporate governance and erratic operational challenges. Others are inability to pay staff salaries and heavy debt burden among other issues, which led to the call for authorities in the country to intervene before the airline goes under like many before it,’’ he explained.
According to Nwauzor, the move underscores government’s decision to instil sanity in the nation’s aviation sector. He said the development will afford the airline to go back to regular and undisrupted operations, avoid job losses, protect investors and stakeholder funds as well as ensure safety and stability in the already challenged aviation sector.
Hadi Sirika, minister of State for Aviation, explained the rationale behind the intervention of the government in the troubled airline: “We believe that this takeover is timely and will stabilise the operations of the airline. This will enhance the long term economic value of Arik Air and revitalise the airline’s ailing operations as well as sustain safety standards, in view of the airline’s pivotal role in the Nigerian aviation sector.’’
Sirika pledged that the Federal Ministry of Aviation would support the new management of the airline. He assured that all necessary steps have been taken to ensure that there will be no undue disruption of the airline’s regular business operations or activities of stakeholders, on account of the recent changes in its leadership.