Despite the recent acquisition of its Air Transport Licence (ATL) from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA ) and the conclusion of the bidding process, which brought forward Ethiopian Airlines as a core investor, some stakeholders are still not confident that the national carrier will find its feet in a few months’ time as promised.
This is just as these stakeholders picked holes in delays and transparency of processes that have been deployed since the airline was launched in Farnborough in July, 2018. During the launch, the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika had promised that Nigeria Air would commence operations at the end of the year 2018. Four years down the line, the airline is yet to get all the necessary requirements to commence operations.
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The airline, which was originally scheduled to commence operations in December 2018, could not start as planned due to the preparation towards the 2019 general elections, while the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and its extension to 2021 further scuttled the commencement date.
Even after COVID-19, the story has remained the same. First, it was planned to start in April 2022; when that failed, the option became to bring in the first out of the three wet-leased aircraft for the airline in June and then commence operations in July, 2022. Again that take-off date failed.
However, a major breakthrough was recorded recently, when the airline received the Air Transport Licence ATL from NCAA. Shortly after that, Ethiopian Airlines (ET) Consortium was selected as preferred bidder for the operation of Nigeria Air.
The Hon. Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika who announced the emergence of Ethiopian Airlines in a press conference held in Abuja, recently, while updating status of the Nigeria Air and the PPP Bidding Process, said the business arrangement will offer an owner consortium of 3 Nigerian investors MRS, SAHCO and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) (46 percent), FGN owning 5 per cent and ET 49 per cent.
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In less than 24 hours and in a dramatic twist, the Aviation Ministry came out to state that it had removed the NSIA from core investors. It, however, noted that there are other “institutional investors” without mentioning their names.
Meanwhile, according to the Minister in his statement, Ethiopian Airline was the only bidder despite the extension of date by an additional one month.
Other bidders allegedly submitted their bids after the close of the bidding process. So, their bids were not accepted. What this means is that ET had it on a platter without any competition.
In their reactions, most aviation stakeholders have described the choice of Ethiopian Air¬lines as the core investor and technical partner in the Ni¬geria Air project as a win for the East African carrier and a huge loss to Nigeria.
Some of the experts among these stakeholders also expressed the fear that, rather than the airline to be a part¬ner with Nigeria as a result of the deal with the Federal Gov¬ernment, Ethiopian Airlines would be competing with the country on its Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) arrangements with other coun¬tries, while capital flight would also increase.
To some of these experts, the rush to convince Nigerians about the commencement of operations of Nigeria Air was just to fulfill one of the election prom¬ises of the President Muham¬madu Buhari-led administration in 2015 and not for the econom¬ic development of Nigeria.
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