Aero suspends operation, blames operating challenges

Aero Contractors, one of West Africa’s oldest aviation companies, has announced that it will temporarily suspend scheduled passenger services on Wednesday.

In a statement in Lagos on Monday, the airline blamed the situation on “the impact of the challenging operating environment on our daily operations”.

It clarified that the suspension of services would not affect “the maintenance activities of the Approved Maintenance Organisation, otherwise known as AeroMRO, the Approved Training Organisation (also known as Aero Training School), the helicopter and charter services operations.

Aero Contractors expressed sincerely apology for any inconvenience caused to its customers and promised to return to service as soon as possible.

The rest of the statement reads: “This decision was carefully considered and taken due to the fact that most of our aircrafts are currently undergoing maintenance, resulting in our inability to offer a seamless and efficient service to our esteemed customers. We are working to bring these aircrafts back to service in the next few weeks, so we can continue to offer our passengers the safe, efficient, and reliable services that Aero Contractors is known for, which is the hallmark of Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Limited.

“The past few months have been very challenging for the aviation industry and the airline operators in particular. With the high cost of maintenance, skyrocketing fuel prices, inflation, and forex scarcity resulting in high foreign exchange rates. These are amongst the major components of airline operations.

“In the meantime, we are working assiduously to return to service as quickly as possible, and do assure our esteemed customers and stakeholders of our determination, that our short absence will not create any major void in the market, as we are coordinating with our business partners to ensure minimum discomfort to ticket holders.

“As members of Spring Alliance (a commercial alliance with member airlines providing mutual support in the area of operations), we are liaising with our partner airlines to minimise the impact on our esteemed customers. Our customer service team will be working to help affected esteemed customers reach their destinations”.

Founded in 1959, Aero has established itself as the leading innovative carrier in West Africa.