Medview Airline Plc has completed plans to acquire Boeing B777 and Boeing B737-800 in order to add more international routes to its destinations as the major domestic carrier begins flights to Dubai in July.
The airline’s Managing Director, Alhaji Muneer Bankole made this known recently in Lagos, disclosing that the aircraft to be acquired were already undergoing seat configuration from the Air France base in France.
“The aircraft as am talking to you is undergoing seat configuration from the Air France base, close to brand new seat on the Air France level. Business class seat is reduced to 24 from 30, so by the grace of God we are looking at the end of the month to the first week of June, the first one will be B777 while the second one will be B 737-800 which you are used to, but it is going to open your mind to the Jobourg route,” Bankole said.
According to him, the airline would start the Dubai route with two flights weekly, Tuesdays and Saturdays and subsequently would increase the frequencies to the busiest Middle East destinations.
“Dubai is two flights, Tuesdays and Saturdays, that is the one we are starting and London will increase from three to four which will go back to Mondays as you know we are doing Sunday, Friday, Wednesday as we are now back to three and as soon as the aircraft arrive that frequency will increase”
He explained further on the planned Dubai flights, “I will be honest to tell you that Dubai has been in the front burner for couple of two seasons, the rule of the game is for you to have a base, we have succeeded in getting the base, put employees on ground, work around the CAA (Dubai Civil Aviation Authority). We have gotten all the permits and now ready to open up the route. We make a suggestion of using a B777 and Boeing B767, so this is one of the reasons I went to meet our partner up there and by the grace of God, we are comfortable to bring one of these airplanes to join our fleet, and as we grow, we will continue to improve on our sector. We opened the West Coast last year and other Anglophones, we are hoping to open soon on the Francophone lane. This is what we have in the next two years.”
Bankole said the airline is moving its Boeing 747 for Hajj because of the capacity.
He explained that: “We are doing very well on Hajj operations, we have the numbers, the Saudi Authorities have increased the numbers from 75 to 96, so Nigeria is back to the old number where we have 20,000 for the international and 76,000, so that gives you more capacity and more business to run. So we are looking at those businesses, you know we are a major player in the Hajj, that is why we segment the business on each level. So the Hajj season is here, the next two months we will be fully involved taking people on pilgrims.
On plans to increase frequencies, Bankole said: “You know every market has its peak period, we have the low, as we are talking now, on the London route we are in the low season, the peak has just passed. People came back for Easter, it was 99 percent full capacity and now we are back to 70 percent. So we encourage our marketers to do more, we are lucky that we are stable, so we will continue to run it now to July when the summer starts. So what am telling you is that come July, it is going to hit the sky, so that is the peak summer where everybody moves. This year, Summer and the Hajj clash at its level, so that is the serious business where most of you will be in the aircraft flying world wide”
He added that for the American route, everything is goes on a quarterly plan.
“What we told you last year, we said for the first quarter of so so period we went to Ghana, we told you in 2015, we went in September, that was the quarter. This one am talking to you now, we are moving to July, that is the third quarter, and that is why we are hitting the ground running. The last quarter, towards the end of the last quarter at the beginning of the year, we might be talking about our flight to Washington.
We relieve ourselves of making noise ahead of plan, we want to give you surprises, that is what makes the difference between Med-View and other airlines, ” Med-View Airline boss emphasised.
