Nigeria Air Launch: MD Reveals Controversial Airline Doesn’t Have License

The Managing Director of Nigeria Air, Captain Dapo Olumide, disclosed before the Senate Committee on Aviation on Tuesday that Nigeria Air doesn't have a license for full operations.

Olumide claimed that the Nigeria Air was only unveiled and not launched by former Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on May 26.

Nigeria's minister of state on aviation announced in March that Nigeria Air will be operational before May 29 as former president Muhammadu Buhari will step down from his position on that date.

"The first flight was an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft. Then it became Malawi Airlines on 16th February 2014," Olumide said, as per SaharaReporters. "It was then acquired again by Ethiopian Airlines in 2015 and has been operating under Ethiopian Air since then."

He continued, "On the 26th of May 2023, it has Nigeria Air colors without changing ownership. It was first spotted in South Africa before it flew to Nigeria today."

Furthermore, the Captain told the Senate Committee that Nigeria doesn't have an operating license for full flight operations, adding that the country is still in the early stage of acquiring the license.

Olumide also admitted that the former government led by Buhari used the chartered Ethiopian aircraft to give an idea about how the logo will look to its investors and Nigerians.

He also confirmed that there are only photos available of Nigeria Air since 2018, noting that the country doesn't have three aircraft to acquire the operational license.

"The aircraft that came in and left was a legitimate charter flight. Anyone of us here if we have a destination wedding in Senegal, we can charter an aircraft," he explained. "You don't need to have a license to do that, you just charter an aircraft, an aircraft you paid for it, it will be brought here, take your passengers and off you go, and that is what we did."

He added, "But in this case, it was to unveil the Logo of Nigeria Air. Ever since 2018, all you have ever seen about Nigeria Air were pictures, drawings not the real aircraft, and we thought it was time to show what the real aircraft will look like, also to let shareholders see."

Moreover, he told the Senate Committee that the institutional investors are not into aviation and still they are investing money for the last 10-15 years. Hence, the government wanted them to see what the actual aircraft will look like.

"For us to get that license which is my mandate, we must among other things have three aircraft before the NCAA will give us a license and those three aircraft must be Nigerian registered aircraft," he explained. "So when this aircraft came on a chartered flight, everybody said we have launched Nigeria Air, there are learned people in the aviation industry who could have countered that when social media came out, but they chose not to."

Nigeria Air, which was first announced in July 2018, was supposed to act as a replacement for Nigeria Airways, which was liquidated in 2003. However, due to several controversies surrounding Nigeria Air, its launch did not push through.