Nigeria’s national carrier to commence operations amid protest

By Adeleye Kunle

The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, on Wednesday, assured that the nation’s national carrier, ‘Nigeria Air’ will commence operations in early December, 2022.

The Minister gave this assurance while interacting with the Senate Press Corps at the National Assembly after he had a session with the Senate Committee on Aviation, where airline operators attended in protest.

Sirika, who attended the meeting with all heads of agencies under the Ministry of Aviation, insisted that there is no going back on the planned take-off of the national carrier, stressing the economic and social benefits of the national carrier.

Earlier, domestic Airline operators in Nigeria have been kicking against the project on the ground of making Ethiopian Airline the major investor in the business.

They were at the meeting in their numbers, expressing their resistance to the policy that made Ethiopian airlines a major investor.

But reacting to questions on the controversy, Hadi Siriki said, Nigeria Air is a ‘Limited Liability Company owned by the Federal government and registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as a legal entity.’

He said: “Nigeria Air is a company that is registered and known to the laws of Nigeria which will become by the God’s grace the much awaited airline.

“It is going to happen by the grace of God between now and December of this year. It will fly and also compete fairly with all of those existing airlines.

“The intent is not to kill any business. The intent is to help to promote all businesses to be able to provide the needed service and employ our people.

“This is the intent and the more the merrier. The more that you have people doing business, then the one that does it better takes the advantage and they give more service and the people get served better.

“If everyone of them is doing very well without any favouritism, then it means that the competition will be healthy and will bring down the price of tickets and increase the propensity to fly and make more people to fly and then make more money for the airlines and give more service to the country Nigeria.

“The idea is a very good one. Whether it will be established by the grace of God, it will be established and it will be for the people”, he said.

In their submissions before the committee, the Domestic Airline operators said they are not against National Carrier but against Ethiopian Airlines as a major investor with 49% equity share.

The Domestic Airline Operators who expressed their opposition to the plan by the President of Top Brass Aviation and former Managing Director of Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Roland Iyayi, said the project as conceived today, is inimical to domestic operators