Arik procures new $200m airbus
Arik Air, Nigeria and West Africa's largest commercial carrier, is set to extend its flight services to all the routes granted it by the Federal Government in the next few months as it takes delivery of a new A330-200 twin engine airbus aircraft on Wednesday.This means more choice for travellers as more direct destinations would be available for them from Nigeria.
The 2011 list price of an A330-200, according to Wikipedia, is $200.8 million while the current price of the aircraft according to AircraftCompare.com is $216.1 million.
The new delivery also gives the airline the opportunity to upgrade the Lagos-Johannesburg route, replacing the B737-800 currently flying between the two cities as well as to develop new long haul destinations such as China, UAE, Brazil and more cities in the US and Europe.
Ado Sanusi, deputy managing director/senior vice president, operations of the airline, who spoke shortly after the ceremonies that marked the delivery of the aircraft at the airline's headquarters, said Arik Air plans to add more wide-bodied to its fleet as it plans to utilise its Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) before the year runs out.
"With the delivery of this aircraft, we have more capacity and before the end of the year, all our BASA routes approved by the Federal Government would be flown, we have exhausted almost all the domestic routes, we will also look at regional markets.
"The new aircraft has a configuration of 30 premium business class seats and 187 economy class seats compared to 36 premium business class seats and 201 economy class seats in the A340 aircraft, and we have the maintenance process in place", he said.
The delivery of the aircraft increases the airline's fleet to 24 and marks the first of four A330 aircraft due to be delivered over the coming year.
The aircraft will complete Arik Air's long-haul wide-body fleet which currently consists of two A330-500 aircraft
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