Nigeria Air : Aviation Minister Says National Carrier To Take Off April 2022.

The new national carrier, Nigerian Air, will begin flight operations from April 2022.

The Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of the virtual Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The Minister explained that in the new national carrier, the federal government will own not more than five per cent equity shares, while Nigerian entrepreneurs and prospective international strategic partners will own 46 per cent and 49 per cent equity shares respectively.

He explained “Today in Council, civil aviation presented two memoranda. The first one is approval for the award of contract for the provision of Automated Civil Aviation Regulatory Equipment, including software support and training, which will be located in Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.

“In summary, this is a software that will allow all of the activities of civil aviation regulation to be done electronically on one platform, including payments, including follow-ups on personnel licensing, the medicals, the economic regulation of airlines, safety regulation of airlines and all other businesses within the envelope of civil aviation will be monitored by this single software.

“It is called ‘the truth machine’ in Europe because all of the truth of regulation of civilization will appear on this platform. It’s extremely important software that the world has now come to terms with.”

“The next one also is approval of the outline business case for the establishment of the national carrier and this is the sixth time the memorandum appeared before Council. The sixth time, we got lucky to be passed by Council.”

“The structure of the proposed airline; the government will be owning not more than 5%. So, 5 per cent is the maximum equity that government will take, then 46% will be owned by Nigerian entrepreneurs. So, if you add that, it’s 51%.”

“This airline if started, and within the first few years will generate about 70,000 jobs. These 70,000 jobs are higher than the total number of civil servants that we have in the country. Its importance had been well discussed so; I’ll not go back to it. You had discussed it separately also on various fora as to the need for it.”

“The name is Nigerian Air which of course, if you remember back in time, this was subject to the national debate and 400,000 people participated, choose the name, the colour, the logo, everything and it was produced that time. It was launched also in Farnborough as far back as 2018.”

“So, the business case is a public document. It will be on our website; you can download it and we can give you copies. This airline will pick up and start, by God’s grace, on or before April 2022.”