Applause from Passegers as Arik Flight 0101 touchdown Heathrow.

[ZAZOO]

9am at the ARIK check in counter and my lady friend from Arik whispers into my ears, Sir the A340 did not arrive from London last night cos some dump catering guy opened the aft entry door and deployed the armed slide.....and she goes shhhhhhhhh its still a secret.

And me goes and how in Gods name am I getting to London today young lady... I have a plane to catch in the morning... well here goes...

Even after a 4hr delay, there we were in the B737-800NG all 136 of us I think and yes believe me or not we were on our way to London. This is a first I told myself, is there some sort of hidden agenda!!! Are we going via freetown or something hmmmm well not so Captain Yanko I think thats his name tookoff and headed out North to my surprise and 6hrs and 15mins later after a lovely flight Arik 0101 landed like a feather London Heathrow to a rousing applause from the passengers.

This was a first and I was proud, Proud to be onboard, proud to be an Aviator and very proud to be a Nigerian.

Before the door was shut, Micheal Mctighe Arik MD profusely apologised over the PA in front of the passengers which I felt was brave but well received by all the passengers. Like the lady next to me said "this one u no go get from BA oooh, they go just de snubb u" I totaly agree with u mam.

Well once again well done and keep it up Arik

I fly the -300series for another company just down the road from Arik and was just wondering what the range of the 800NG with MTOW would be and do they carry bigger fuel tanks or auxillary tanks etc...

Zazoo

[AlternativeProcedure]

I heard they were planning Gatwick via freetown, but Heathrow direct??? That must have taken alot of planning, because you only have to hit the wrong jetstream over the sahara and its diversion time. Respect to the Arik boys(and girls) though, they seem to be moving ahead with their plans, flying the flag and changing the face of Nigerian aviation. Very proud of them!!!

[Hussar 54]

Not too sure about ARIK's NG's, but flew down to Lagos last week from Istanbul with THY and was a bit surprised to see a 737NG at the gate instead of the advertised A330....

Even more surprised that although the C/C were going to HOTAC, the Crew did a fairly quick turnround and headed straight back off to Istanbul....Had a red-stripe C/P sat in Business class, but still an uncomfortably long Duty Time I would have thought -

DEP IST 15.20 LOCAL SAT
ARR IST 06.25 LOCAL SUN

And in the ARIK case that ZAZOO mentions, who / how did the return get crewed back ? Or was there a fairly lengthy delay ex London until a new crew were sent up on the BA flight ?

Hummm....

[thedick]

ZAZOO long time hearing from you, how are you ? are you still with Bellwiev? what is so excellent of ordinary flight from LOS to LHR done that many times , nothing specially As we can find out 737 ng series are good ones to use...:ok:

[ZAZOO]

Good question Hussar, was told by the crew that Airbus Industrie had been working on the A340 with a new slide from Toulouse and would operate back to Lagos that night and the B737 would be ferried back to Lagos the next day.

The second A340 is also meant to arrive Lagos at the end of the month or even earlier as they intend to start Johburg this month end, while they wait for the leased A330 to operate that route and then the A340 would be positioned for the US sector...

Hello Dick hd...yes been a while ol chap, well its been sometime I left old Bluetail :sad: and believe me at Bluetail were some of my best times in this industry and I am still a great fan... you never know...!!! if Mr. Odukoya comes up with something like the good old days I might just be knockin at his door.....times have changed and from a discussion I had with him a few weeks ago he himself acknowledged this and though he agrees to have something going to get bluetail up and back in full swing again, he did say that things are not easy... whether they are good or bad I wished him well.

Zazoo