Business Day
Four months to the announced date by the Federal Government that a national carrier, Nigeria Air, would commence operations, BusinessDay’s checks show that there are no personnel, investor and physical or technical structure on ground currently to make this a reality.
Before an airline is considered ready to commence operations, the airline must have gone through the five different stages of acquiring Air Operating Certificates (AOC) for local flight operations from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and these stages take between one to three years, depending on how satisfied the authority is.
In addition, the airline must have readied its aircraft, whether leased or purchased; it must have four key technical staff, some that include the chief pilot, chief operations officer, maintenance officer and chief engineer, and must have an operational base.
Investigations carried out by BusinessDay show that the country’s prospective national carrier currently has not met any of these criteria, and industry stakeholders have expressed concerns as to how the airline hopes to kick off in four months’ time with none of these structures on ground.
Three weeks ago, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved April 2022 as the take-off date of Air Nigeria, the proposed new national carrier.
Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation, said the Federal Government would own only 5 percent equity in the airline while other Nigerians would get 46 percent. He disclosed that strategic partners, including foreign airlines, would be identified to take up the remaining 49 percent equity (as we write, no known technical partner has been mentioned).
Olumide Ohunayo, an aviation analyst, says he was surprised to hear the minister announcing April 2022 as the take-off date for the national carrier because the airline has no structure or investor in place.
“In four months, how does the minister hope to go through the five stages of the AOC and fly in April? This will be a miracle, and this has confirmed the fears of the industry that the airline will be favoured, allowed to override the system and processes
