Nigeria’s national carrier, Nigeria Air is to commence operations with three leased aircraft.
This follows approval by the federal government for the aviation ministry to get three wet-leased aircraft.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who disclosed this, Nigeria Air will start with domestic flights before expanding to international routes and that there will be a mixture of airbus and boeings “because every airline that will grow big uses the two.”
This is even as he said that the sum of N707,962,864.83 (€1,506,285.7) had been approved by the federal executive council for the deployment of investigation tools by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) in the aviation sector.
“That tool will permit the Accident Investigation Bureau to be able to decode goings on in flights, and God forbid, should there be a need to investigate the accident or incident, the tool will help them to be able to do so,” he said.
He noted the challenges in the aviation sector but said they won’t last forever as aviation is a very resilient sector.
Sirika further stated that the federal government was finding solutions to the problems and the cost of fuel was also being attended to.
On the issue of airline shut down such as Aero Contractors, Sirika said “Aero Contractors at the moment have on their own chosen to shut down to rejig the airline internally.”
“We are open to any person. By the way, the structure of the outline business case, as you are aware, is 51 percent in Nigeria.
“So, that 51 percent may be taken by Nigerians, be it Arik, Azman, be it anybody or even yourself. So, you are open to come and join. We don’t expect to exclude anybody that will come. Of course, anybody coming to join has to go through full due diligence to avoid all encumbrances.”
