National airliner, Nigeria Air, is expected to take off by April 2022, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has revealed.
The Minister spoke to State House Correspondents on Wednesday after the week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to Sirika, the national carrier will be run by a company in which the government will hold a 5% stake, Nigerian entrepreneurs holding 46% while the remaining 49% will be reserved for yet-to-be-assigned strategic equity partners, including foreign investors.
According to Sirika, the national carrier, when operational, will create about 70,000 jobs for Nigerians.
POLITICS NIGERIA recalls that the new ‘Nigeria Air’ was announced at the Farnborough Air Show in the United Kingdom in 2018. Initially, operations were due to commence in December 2018. However, just two months later, in September 2018, the Federal Government announced that Nigeria Air had been suspended.
Before suspending the project, the Nigerian government had announced it would invest US$5 million in the new airline, and said that the investment would be intended as a business.
Before suspending operations, the airline announced it was looking into 81 route options. Destinations were not finalised before operations ceased.
