Nigeria Suspends National Airline Project

Nigeria has postponed the launch of new national airline Nigeria Air, scheduled for December.

The country’s aviation minister Hadi Sirika announced on Twitter that the project will be suspended “in the interim”. He later said the decision had been taken at Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council meeting for “strategic reasons.”

Sirika announced the name of the new airline at the Farnborough Airshow in July where he was meeting Airbus and Boeing about the supply of aircraft.

Nigeria Air was planned to be commercially run with the government owning a maximum of 5 percent of the airline, with the private sector owning the rest.

The Nigerian government had identified 81 routes for possible air service, but the airline was planning to launch with 40 domestic and regional, and to 41 international destinations, Sirika said at the Farnborough announcement.

“This airline is a business and not a social service. It is not intended to kill any airline in Nigeria but complement it and promote it. It must be done in the right way so that it will be here to stay,” Sirika said at the time.