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| Aero Contractors, currently under Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), in March sacked about 600 out of its 1,030 workers as part of its ongoing restructuring exercise to keep the airline afloat. |
• Bird strike stalls Med-View’s Hajj operations in Ilorin
Pilots and engineers have threatened an imminent shutdown of local
flight operations in protest of alleged anti-labour issues at Aero
Contractors of Nigeria Limited.
The pilots and engineers, under the aegis of National Association of
Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), said the strike is a protest
against the sack of about 600 workers without any benefit.
A date for the strike was yet to be fixed. A nationwide shutdown of
local scheduled and unscheduled operations will throw the industry into
chaos, with huge revenue in billions lost by stakeholders.
Aero Contractors, currently under Assets Management Corporation of
Nigeria (AMCON), in March sacked about 600 out of its 1,030 workers as
part of its ongoing restructuring exercise to keep the airline afloat.
President of NAAPE, Abednego Galadima, said whereas they were
displeased with the notification of redundancy served to its members,
their understanding and the need to save the airlines from going under
ensured various unions succumbed to negotiations of a redundancy package
of affected workers.
Galadima said: “the Receiver Manager of Aero Contractors, under the
prompting of AMCON, has crossed the line by his unguided action of
unilaterally throwing the workers affected by the redundancy exercise
out of the airline without paying them their redundancy benefits, even
as meagre as these benefits are. This is a most wicked impunity. And it
will not be allowed to stand.
“In keeping with our duties and mandate under the laws of Nigeria,
NAAPE has decided to declare a nationwide strike action in demonstration
of our abhorrence of the inhuman treatment being meted to the
unfortunate Aero workers.’’
Public Relations Officer of the union, Francis Igwe, said they were
not unaware of how dearly a national strike will cost the sector.
However, it is incumbent on the Federal Government, relevant ministries
and stakeholders to prevail on AMCON “to do the needful with regards to
the rights of the workers of Aero Contractors in order to avert the
imminent crisis of shutting down Nigeria’s aviation industry.”
Officials close to the Aero Receiver Manager, Capt. Ado Sanusi, told
The Guardian yesterday that the manager indeed empathised with the
workers but “the truth is that the airline has no money to pay their
benefits.”
In a related development, bird strike on Med-View Airline’s Boeing
767 aircraft has forced the temporary halt and disruption of Hajj
pilgrims’ airlift from Ilorin airport.
The bird strike incident happened Saturday night as the aircraft,
with 222 pilgrims already onboard, was taxiing for takeoff, forcing the
pilots to abort the flight.
Spokesperson of Med-View, Obuke Oyibotha, informed that the 222
pilgrims were de-boarded without incident following the bird strike, and
arrangements were being made to provide another aircraft to airlift the
pilgrims yesterday.
It could not, however, be confirmed as at the time of filing this report, if the pilgrims were airlifted as rescheduled.
