Workers warned all Arik’s 23 planes may be grounded if prompt actions were not taken.
Before now, Arik Air used to pay their flight attendants N1400 (about $8) per hour in allowances but the airline has scrapped the arrangement and has decided to pay N1500 (about $9) for a one-way trip and N3000 (about $18) for a round trip.
“A Lagos-New York-Lagos flight is 24 hours. They used to pay us N1400 per hour, which is N33600. Now they say they will just pay us N3000 for the same round trip,” a flight attendant said.
“Within Nigeria, it was the same thing. Arik Air used to pay us N1400 per hour to any destination. Now they will just pay us N3000 for a round trip even if we spend four hours,” a crew who did not want to be mentioned said.
Arik Air spokesperson, Banji Ola, said the flight attendants were lying and were “feeding reporters with lies”.
He said salaries have just been increased and all workers, including flight attendants, are happy.
“I can confirm that salaries have been increased effective from March across board and everyone is happy in our office,” Ola said.
But several cabin crew who spoke with our correspondent argued that increasing basic salary while slashing allowances has left them with less money.
“No one is happy and we may go on strike,” the flight attendant said.
Some workers seem to have taken their plight to the social media. A message being circulated on blackberry phones on Sunday read;
“If this (strike) is allowed to happen, the rippling effect will be massive as Arik Air seem to be the only airline in full operation for now. All those businesses in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos, Dakar, Luanda, Freetown etc will suffer. Passengers to London, New York, Johannesburg will be stranded and that won’t be funny.
“Labour and government should prevail on Arik to do the right thing now! A word is enough for the wise.”
Aero Contractors, Nigeria’s second largest airline, is just trying to recover from a strike action that paralysed its activities nationwide for more than two weeks.
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