I thought of werewolf airlines when I saw a story at the weekend that Federal Government plans to spend N400million in next year’s budget on its proposed national carrier, Nigeria Air. This “airline” has been in the works on the ground for six years now.
It is not just because Nigeria Airways, once one of Africa’s largest airlines, stopped flying in 2004 that many people are skeptical about floating a new, government-owned national carrier. Many of the world’s famous airlines that we became very familiar with during our youth are now shadows of their former selves or have disappeared altogether.
We excuse BOAC, British Overseas Airways Corporation, whose DC-7s and DC-8s we read about in our primary school textbooks. It later merged with British European Airways to become British Airways, which is probably the world’s most visible airline today. Privately-owned British Caledonian, once very visible, vanished in the 1980s.
In the heydays of the USSR, Guinness Book of Records regularly listed its state-owned Aeroflot as the world’s largest airline, with over 5000 aircraft. Today, as the airline of the Russian Federation, Aeroflot is a shadow of its former self. In the 1970s and 1980s, no airline was more visible in international and African news magazines than KLM, “The Flying Dutchman.” It was revealed four years ago that King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander was a secret KLM pilot for 21 years.
Just as prominent was Swiss Air, with its Red Cross symbol. Its headquarters in Zurich then was a sight to behold, as I saw on three occasions in the 1990s. Swiss Air’s powerful DC-10s made a show as they flew over the Swiss Alps. The other, very prominent European airline of that era was Germany’s Lufthansa. As a student, I distrusted it because its name was eerily similar to Luftwaffe, the German Air Force of World War Two.
Air France is still quite visible, but many once visible European airlines are now shadows of their former selves. They include Sabena, “The Belgian World Airline” which went bankrupt in 2001; Italy’s Alitalia, which is now in “extraordinary administration”; Spain’s Iberian Airways and Aer Lingus of Ireland. Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, which offered during the Abacha era to turn Abuja Airport into an African aviation hub, is no longer very visible. Where is Freddie Laker’s Sky Train, which in 1977 made a huge splash as a cheap, “no frills” airline?
American airlines Pan Am and TWA dominated the skies up until the 1990s. TWA suffered a severe setback when one of its planes crashed into the Atlantic in 1996. A similar fate befell Pan Am when its plane was bombed over Lockerbie village, Scotland in 1988, allegedly by Libyan agents. Several other once-huge US airlines such as North West and US Air are either gone or are shadows of their former selves. Including Value Jet, the low cost airline that also suffered badly when one of its planes crashed into the Florida Everglades in 1996.
In Africa too, once prominent airlines have come and gone. The vibrant East African Airways collapsed when the East African Community of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania collapsed in 1977, essentially due to quarrels between Field Marshal Idi Amin and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. Air Afrique, owned by eleven West and Central African Francophone countries, was once very visible but it disappeared in 2002. Sudan Airways used to come to Kano; I doubt if it does so now. Air Algerie of Algeria was once visible, but not anymore.
The two top African airlines that are as visible today as they were 40 years ago are Egypt Air and Ethiopian. The latter used to adorn magazine pages and television screens with pictures of beautiful Ethiopian air hostesses. Ethiopia made much of this national asset at FESTAC in January 1977, when its contingent stole the show. As did Somalis, who however had no visible airline of their own. South African Airways was only able to join the African aviation Big League after Apartheid ended in 1994.
Egypt Air is still very visible. Apparently it sends smaller planes to Nigeria these days, as I boarded one to Cairo in May. In 1992, I was sitting in a Harco plane trying to take off from Lagos airport when there was an unexpected delay. Its Russian pilots spoke no English, so they did not tell passengers the reason for the delay. I was the one who told other passengers the reason when, from the window, I saw an Egypt Air Boeing 747 arriving, its dozen or so tyres making a huge splash on the rain-swept tarmac.
Saudi Arabian suffered bad publicity in 1996 when its passenger plane departing for Jeddah collided with an arriving Kazakh cargo plane at New Delhi airport, with lots of lives lost. Investigators said it was the Kazakh plane’s fault because its pilots spoke no English and did not hear the control tower’s warning.
Israel’s state-owned airline El Al was once very prominent. After Palestinian guerillas hijacked an Air France plane in 1976 and flew it to Uganda’s Entebbe airport, Israeli commandos staged a cross-continental raid and rescued the passengers. After that, many Africans became wary of El Al, the only airline whose planes have missile defence systems.
Air Alia, Royal Jordanian Airlines, was once a heavy advertiser. There was some dispute in the 1970s as to whether “Alia” referred to King Hussein’s daughter Princess Alia or his wife Queen Alia, an American who was the daughter of the President of Pan Am. Amman said it referred to the daughter, but doubts remained.
Indian Airways once regularly visited Nigeria. In 1984 heroin was found in its cabin, smuggled in by Nigerian passengers. The Buhari military regime at first seized the plane, but Supreme Headquarters later announced that it was being released because of “the very friendly relations between Nigeria and India.”
Not much is heard these days about Japan’s All Nippon or of Japan Airways, since the latter’s Boeing 747 plane crashed into Mount Osutaka in 1985 and killed 520 people. We don’t hear much now of Cubana, the Cuban state airline that we loved very much because of Fidel Castro.
Nigeria Airways was not the only airline to disappear. No need to spend N400 million on its clone called Nigeria Air.
