Nigeria Air’s launch has been delayed once again as local airlines protest electing Ethiopian Airlines as the national carrier’s partner alongside government. After Ethiopian Airlines had bought a 49% stake in the carrier In September, a federal court ordered the government to suspend the partnership in reaction to a lawsuit by eight local airlines last month.
The lawsuit, backed mainly by Nigerian carrier Air Peace, claimed that local airlines were not involved in the process of electing Ethiopian Airlines as an official partner. CEO of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, said Nigeria Air should rather be entirely owned by Nigerians themselves.
This has derailed President Muhammadu Buhari and Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika’s plans to launch Nigeria Air flights between Lagos and Abuja this year.
According to Simple Flying, lobbyists and plaintiffs asserted that they had been excluded from the unlawful bidding and selection processes, citing the "wrongful projection of the plaintiffs as not having properly, rightly, and timely bid for the Nigeria Air project”.
“Stakeholders claiming they were not carried along are being unfair,” the aviation minister responded.
"I am curious about this partnership where our government has just 5% on our behalf, while the Ethiopian government has 49% on behalf of its people. A 5% shareholding will not take our country anywhere, whereas another nation is taking 49%, and three individuals are together having 46%,” aviation expert and retired captain, John Ojikutu, told Punch NG.
“Ultimately, foreign partnership shareholding is about 72%, while the Nigerians’ shareholding is about 28%,” he said.
After the interim court injunction that has blocked the government from fully launching Nigeria Air just yet, the carrier must wait until February 13, for a further legal review.
The airline was originally announced as a brand-new national carrier in July 2018, with flights planned to kick off that December – but plans were suspended in the September.
