{Nigeria’s carrier, Arik Air and other African airlines that operate in the West African coast, may be losing as much as $2 billion monthly due to measures taken to stave off the Ebola epidemic, a senior aviation official has said.}
A report by ThisDay newspaper on Friday quoted the Deputy Managing Director and Head of Flight Operations, Arik Air, Captain Ado Sanusi as saying that the airlines affected are those which suspended their operations to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia due to the Ebola epidemic.
The airlines that operated in the West African coast are the Lome-based Asky Airlines, The Gambia Bird, Rwanda Air and Ethiopian Airlines among others.
He said the revenue loss for these airlines is sequel to reduced passenger load factor and disruption of flights due to lack of connectivity to other destinations through those countries’ routes.
According to him, many potential travellers in West Africa and other parts of the world have stopped travelling to destinations in the region due to the outbreak which had killed over 2, 400 people since February.
“Since we suspended flights to the Ebola affected countries, Arik is losing about N250 million a week, which is about $1.5 million” he said.
“We have cancelled Lagos-Banjul; Lagos-Douala; Lagos-Freetown and Lagos- Monrovia flights. These are not direct flights.
“Some come to feed our network to Johannesburg, London, New York and local destinations. We have noted a decline of about N250 million revenues every week,” Sanusi added.
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