The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika on Wednesday, announced the suspension of the planned national carrier, Nigeria Air.
On his Twitter handle, @hadisirika, Sirika tweeted: I regret to announce that the Federal Executive Council has taken the tough decision to suspend the National Carrier Project in the interim. All commitments due will be honoured. We thank the public for the support as always.”
The suspension may have surprised many but not industry observers who knew that there was no concrete plan on ground to midwife the airline.
Informed source disclosed that about $4 million has been expended on the national carrier project and this did not include the over N500 million spent on the unveiling of the logo and name by the Minister of State, Aviation with a retinue of agency heads, members of the national carrier committee and the Transaction Adviser travelled to London to unveil the airline.
Initially Lufthansa was recruited as the Transaction Adviser but was later paid off and the company’s representative in Nigeria was recruited to replace the German firm.
It was the new Adviser that did the design and logo and paid for the slot at Farnborough at whooping amount of money.
Some industry insiders saw the national carrier project as a bazaar, which was never meant to happen.
Despite serious discussions on the project, there was no physical structure to show for the planned national carrier, no recruitment and the Transaction Adviser waited until the project was cancelled.
There was also collateral damage caused by the national carrier project because many domestic airlines lost business with lessors and others due of national carrier.
Lessors believed that the national carrier would be the priority of government so other airlines would have to struggle. In their calculations, if they lease aircraft to other airlines in the country, the domestic airlines may not be able to generate enough money to pay for the lease.
