By Hajaratu Kalokoh
Air Cote d’Ivoire is set to resume flight to Sierra Leone, after about a year of absence due to a disagreement over a court verdict on a suit brought against it by an aggrieved passenger.
The first flight of the airline is scheduled to land at the Freetown International Airport in Lungi on Tuesday, October 1, 2019.
The airline stopped flying to Freetown in January 2018, shortly after losing a bitter court battle that left it parted with US$11,000 as compensation to the aggrieved passenger.
The complainant, whose luggage got missing on a flight between Lagos and Freetown in 2017, claimed they lost motor spare parts.
Air Cote d’Ivoire argued at the time that the court’s verdict went against the industrial laws of Sierra Leone, noting that the compensated amount far exceeded the required compensation fees.
Shortly after making the payment, the airline shut down its offices in the country. It also later filed an appeal against the ruling.
Air Cote d’Ivoire is the National Airline of the `Ivory Coast. The airline was founded on May 15, 2012 following the collapse of its predecessor airline, Air Ivory in 2011. It initially started flying to Freetown in November 2012.
The company, which is partly owned by Air France, has up to 10 aircrafts in its fleet, operating via eight hub stations, with its main regional hub located at Port-Bouet, in Abidjan. Air Cote d’Ivoire works closely with Air Burkina and Air Mali.
Edgar Lacle, Sales Manager for African Solutions and Logistics, which is the general sales agent for Air Cote d’Ivoire in Freetown, told Politico that they will be operating five times a week to Freetown: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
"Three of these flights will go via Monrovia before Abidjan, then two of these flights will go directly to Abidjan from Freetown,” he said.
Air Cote d’Ivoire’s return to the Sierra Leonean airspace will not be as easy as it expects. The company will have to regain the trust of passengers following the bad press created by the experience with the law suit.
But according to Mr Lacle, this has already been settled by the verdict of the appeals court which declared the initial judgment wrong.
Due to the vacuum in air travel created by the shutdown of the airline, the government, through the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Transport and Aviation, intervened to ensure the speed of the appeals process was enhanced.
Eventually, a higher court overturned the initial ruling, with the judge saying that the first judgment should have been based on the industrial laws, as the airline had argued.
Lacle said besides their preparedness for a similar experience in the future, they are motivated by a change in the prevailing environment, hence their decision to resume operation.
“I feel that we have much more cooperative environment to handle such issues if they do occur again and that the compensation is speedily offered to the customer so that the matter will not reach to an extent,” he said.
© 2019 Politico Online
