Nigeria Air launch delayed to mid-2023
n July 2018, Nigeria announced with great fanfare the imminent launch of its new airline called Nigeria Air. In September of the same year, the Federal Executive Council decided to suspend the project before reactivating it three years later in November 2021.
Nigeria Air will not see the air this year, as intended by the Nigerian authorities. According to Michael Ohiani of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the project is on course despite the slight delay and will certainly see the light of day before the end of President Buhari's second term, which ends in May 2023.
According to him, the startup has already obtained all the presidential guarantees. "We are working round the clock to make it operational. We are working with the Ministry of Aviation and we just got a presidential approval," he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. "I can assure you that before the end of this administration, Air Nigeria will start flying. For him, the next major step will be to find the strategic partners in the planned public-private partnership agreement.
In November 2021, the Federal Executive Council had finally adopted the business case for the future airline, after six postponements. At that time, Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika was expecting April 2022 for its launch, highlighting the imminence of the procurement phase.
According to the roadmap proposed in this analysis, the government will hold no more than 5% of the shares, 46% will be locally owned while 49% will be owned by strategic partners yet to be defined. Approximately $250 million will be needed to launch the company, which is expected to generate 70,000 jobs in the first few years.
It should be recalled that the name, logo, colours and even the slogan ("Bringing Nigeria closer to the world") of the future pavilion had been unveiled in July 2018 at the Farnborough Airshow in the UK. During that presentation, the start-up plan called for a launch fleet of five aircraft including Airbus A330s and Boeing 737 s, with a target of 30 aircraft after the first five years of operations. Over the period, the carrier projected 81 routes, including 40 domestic and sub-regional routes and 41 international services.
