Nigeria Air misses sixth takeoff date

Nigeria’s bid to establish a new national carrier has once again failed because airline operators are determined to get their way in court.

Nigeria Air was slated for launch this month (December) which was further reiterated by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying work had reached 91 percent.

However, a suit challenging the shareholding structure by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) has again forced the government to shift the take-off to the first quarter of 2023.

The latest will make it the sixth time the national project has aborted the crucial take-off.

After the launch of the project in July 2018, Nigeria Air was scheduled to take off in December of that year, but it never materialized.

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had also during a budget defense session in October 2020, told the Senate Committee on Aviation that the Aviation Road Map agenda would be executed in 2021, but this never happened.

Again, On November 23, 2021, after a FEC meeting, Sirika announced that the airline would now take off in April 2022. Again it never happened.

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In March 2022, Sirika revealed that take-off date was again shifted to July 2022, this never materialized and the final date was put at December 2022 after reaching an agreement with Ethiopian airline among other investors.

But on Friday, the federal government failed in its move to stop AON from stopping the takeoff date.

However, presiding judge, Justice Lewis Allagoa, of the federal high court, reaffirmed the court’s earlier order stopping the project until the case between the airline and federal government is settled.

After careful consideration of the oral application by the federal government the court however brought forward the date for the continuation of the hearing of the matter to January 16, 2022, from the initial date of February 13, 2022.

Domestic airline operators had on November 16, 2022, approached the court to halt the project.

They equally declared that the 2nd Defendant (Ethiopian Airlines) was incompetent to bid for shares in the 1st Defendant and commence business accordingly.

The plaintiff prayed the court to set aside the entire bidding/selection process (es) for the “Nigeria Air” project as well as the approval, grant, or selection of the 2nd defendant by the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Defendants in the process.

The federal government had selected Ethiopian Airlines as technical partner for Nigeria Air while the airline was expected to have a controlling share of 49 percent which did not go down well with the domestic operators.