In mid-2018, the Nigerian government announced plans to relaunch a national airline. Within a couple of months, the project was scrapped. It looks like it’s now back on.
Continue reading: Nigeria Air Closer To Launching… Maybe?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
It is election season in Nigeria. View anything coming out of there through that lens for the next few months.
While Chinedu is probably as well sourced an aviation journalist as there is in Nigeria, I take any leaks from Sirika's office with a huge pinch of salt at the best of times.
That said, ET is happy to do satellite carrier deals that don't involve cash or widebodies. Their risk in this deal is low and with a huge upside by securing maintenance, training, lease and management contracts. Even if the carrier fails for political reasons, ET will exit with their assets and the cash. If it succeeds, they get a nice domestic feeder network to complement the regional network that ASKY gives them in Togo next door.
NigeriAir is the best name to me. Nigeria Air is weird and hard to say, Air Nigeria or Nigeria Airways/Airlines would both make more sense.
Winner for 2022 Worst World-wide Investment award!
Savvy Ethiopian Airlines has declined to invest any actual money in the scheme. Seems than since the promoters are looking for private investment there will be plenty of easy-come-easy go cash floating about from corrupt sources looking to park ill-gotten gains.
I will watch this space with tepid interest to see if it comes to anything.
Depends. It would be good if their pricing was reasonable and because of their involvement with Ethiopian may be they could also have Star Alliance benefits. Such status says a lot about lower end airlines and some very low end airlines that are not part of any group are usually very expensive.
I'd describe their business model as follows:
A smiling young lady from Niger
Took a ride on the back of a tiger.
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
I'm just not sure who's who.
Nigeria seems like a country ripe for a quality local airline. Huge population, plenty of local wealth and foreign airlines seem to do very well there.
Corruption and nepotism seems to be the main things stopping this being a success
The Nigeria Air project is doomed to fail... government has NO business setting up a new airline... over N16bn has been spent on consultancy and other stuff while only N700m was released to wet lease three aircraft for starters. No investor will put a dime in it I can bet... FG already has control of Aero and Arik Air through AMCON so why not simply merge both and convert to the so-called national carrier. Air Peace has over 30 aircraft, so why no simply designate it as a flag carrier. This project is a waste of time and resources and it shows... what benefits will ET bring other than feathering its own nest and bailing out when it gets tired of the many problems bedeviling the local óperators here
I think Ethiopian Airlines is taking tons of risk. It was the only bidder. Nigerian government is not credit worthy to pay its dues.