Following the unveiling of Nigeria Air last Friday, its first aircraft has returned to East Africa and is back in service for Ethiopian Airlines (ET).The proposed national carrier received a Boeing 737-800 last week, presented to the public at Abuja Nnamdi Akiziwe Airport (ABV). Although it was branded with Nigeria Air's signature livery, the jet is registered as ET-APL, raising eyebrows and leaving people wondering who it belonged to.
The 737 returns to Addis Ababa
In the early hours of Friday, May 26, the 737 with Nigeria Air colors was spotted at Addis Ababa Bole International (ADD). The aircraft later flew to Abuja, where it was welcomed by the former Nigerian Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, ET Chief Commercial Officer Lemma Yadecha, and various stakeholders and media representatives.
The minister referred to Nigeria Air as the missing infrastructure in the nation's aviation industry, adding that the 737 would be retrofitted and begin operations for the airline. However, after unveiling it to the public, it flew back to Addis Ababa.
Monday, May 29, was officially the last day of the Buhari administration as Nigeria's new president Bola Tinubu was inaugurated. Minister Sirika hoped to have launched the national carrier before leaving office, but several obstacles stopped it from taking off.
ET-APL
The Nigerian government chose the Ethiopian national carrier as a significant investor because of its capacity, experience, and ability to succeed in the challenging aviation industry. Looking at its partnerships with ASKY Airlines and Malawi Airlines, Nigeria Air could have been successful under ET's ownership.
According to information from Flightradar24, ET-APL is about ten years old and has been operating daily flights for Ethiopian. In May 2023, the 737 operated over 60 flights for the airline with regular routes from Addis Ababa (ADD) to Beirut (BEY), Bahrain (BAH), Dar es Salaam (DAR), Entebbe (EBB), Mogadishu (MGQ), Nairobi (NBO), Riyadh, and Tel Aviv (TLV).
On May 22, the aircraft flew between TLV and ADD before halting operations for four days. Its next flight was on May 26, when it flew to ABV for the unveiling of Nigeria Air. On May 27, it departed ABV at 19:05, arriving at ADD at 01:35 the following morning.
After touching down, ET-APL did not fly for another four days. On May 31, it resumed regular service for Ethiopian Airlines with a flight from Addis Ababa to Mogadishu. Since then, the 737 has operated eight flights for the East African carrier.
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Permanent Secretary summoned
The national carrier was set to be launched by May 29 if everything had gone according to plan. However, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) denied Nigeria Air the Air Operators Certificate (AOC) it required to begin commercial operations.
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives summoned the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation, Dr. Emmanuel Meribole, following the return of the Ethiopian B737. The invitation dated May 30, 2023, read;
"Last Friday, the 26th of May, 2023, the nation was awash with viral reports and videos of the unveiling of the Nigeria Air project under very controversial circumstances, as Committee of the parliament saddled with the responsibility of oversight the aviation sector of the economy, we deem it necessary to be fully briefed about the project."
The Permanent Secretary and stakeholders involved in the Nigeria Air project were invited to meet on Thursday, June 1. However, Dr. Meribole requested more time to gather all necessary resources, so the emergency meeting has been postponed to Wednesday, June 7.
What do you think of the latest Nigeria Air developments? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Daily Post