Article Summary
1. Arik Air and other African airlines that operate in the West African coast which suspended their operations to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia due to outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) may be losing as much as $2 billion monthly.
2. This is sequel to reduced passenger load factor and disruption of flights due to lack of connectivity to other destinations through those countries’ routes.
3. Other airlines that operated in the West African coast are the Lome-based Asky Airlines, which brought the index case, Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer into Nigeria; the Gambian Bird; Rwand Air; and Ethiopian Airlines.
4. Deputy Managing Director and Head of Flight Operations, Arik Air, Captain Ado Sanusi confirmed that the airline loses about N250 million weekly due to suspension of its flights to these three countries and corollary loss of passengers connecting from these destinations to other parts of the world.
5. Asky said they are not allowed to fly to seven countries from Nigeria. Once you have the Nigerian passport they will not allow the passenger to come into their country and the Nigerian government is not doing anything about this stigmatisation.
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