Posted by Sade Williams
The fall out of the Covid-19 pandemic may have taken its toll on Nigeria’s airlines as the once largest carrier in West Africa, Arik said it has decided to implement an 80% pay cut for all members of staff across the entire organization for the month of April 2020.
The Airline added that commencing from May 1st 2020, no less than 90% of its staff will proceed on leave without pay until further notice.
This information is contained in a letter sent to all staff by the managing director of the company, Captain Roy Ilegbodu, on Thursday.
Ilegbodu, who explained that the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic remains dire with a high level of uncertainty, even within medical circles, regretted that the situation in Nigeria appears to be getting worse.
“With the current observed trend of events, it is prudent to lean on the assumption that the situation is likely to persist for a while longer. Of huge significance to us is that we have suffered a sharp decline of over 98% in our revenue streams since the suspension of our scheduled flights almost four weeks ago. Added to this is the rapid decline in the value of the Naira by over 35% against the benchmark and with oil prices now falling well below $15 per barrel, it is evident that we must, without further delay, take decisive action to preserve our organization.
“Our focus as management has always been hinged on the well-being and safety of our staff, managing our liquidity as an organization and creating the opportunity to ride out of inclement circumstances such as the one we are faced with today”, he said.
He revealed that recently, the airline reached out to its suppliers, specifically negotiating reduced rates on all our contracted services and mitigating operational expenses due to changes in demand, adding that it also implemented contingency plans for staff and introduced operational support flexibility.
“Notwithstanding that some of the measures taken so far have contributed to conserving our limited resources, the outlook for the near future is not encouraging and our current level of business simply cannot support our operations for much longer.
“For this reason, to safeguard the survival of our organization, we are constrained to introduce additional measures to curtail our costs, as dictated by the turn of events.
“After careful deliberation and analyses, management has decided to implement an 80% pay cut for all members of staff across the entire organization for the month of April 2020. Furthermore, commencing from May 1st 2020, no less than 90% of our staff will proceed on leave without pay until further notice. This position will be reviewed on a monthly basis and communications on further developments will be shared by our Human Resource department as the situation evolves”, he added.
He however expresses hope that ‘this ugly situation will abate in the shortest possible time and our organization will come out stronger in the long run. We are confident that the steps we are taking now are in the best interest of all and will see us through this difficult epoch in the history of mankind”.
