Despite the controversy that trailed the eight years efforts of the immediate past government to float another national carrier, Nigeria Air for Nigerians, in partnership with Ethiopian Airlines, the African carrier is still optimistic that the deal has not gone bad after all.
This became obvious when the Chief Commercial Officer of the airline, Mr. Lemma Gudeta, cleared the air on some knotty areas in the now suspended national carrier’s project during an interactive session with some journalists.
While expressing sadness over the controversy that greeted the partnership, the COO, who took his time to explain the details about the involvement of the airline in the national carrier project, ruled out any act of violation of the Nigerian law while the processes took place.
According to Gudeta, Ethiopian Airline, like others was invited by the Nigerian government to bid for the position of the core technical partner during which it passed through all the bidding evaluations in line with the Federal Government’s laid down guidelines concerning the project.
His words: “Yes, because Ethiopian Airlines did a tremendous job to establish a national carrier for Nigeria. We were invited by the national government of Nigeria, we passed through the proper bid evaluation and we were chosen as a preferred bidder at a time. We spent a lot of money on the Nigeria Air project.
“And we even went to the level of acquiring three Boeing 737 Max aircraft. We have already paid and entered into a contract, there is no option than for us to take those airplanes. We are going to use the airplanes here in Ethiopia and we have partners in Africa; a very successful one in Togo in Asky Airlines and we have another one in Zambia and Malawi.
“One of the aircraft has already arrived Ethiopia and the second one will arrive today or tomorrow (last Thursday or Friday) and the third one will follow later. Ethiopian Airlines is a very reputable airline and we are a company that knows what it does.”
Gudeta, who rejected the notion that. Ethiopian airlines did not play by the rules on the Nigeria Air project, however, expressed the optimism that President Bola Tinubu’s government would continue the processes from where his predecessor stopped on the national carrier project.
Since the airline was not found wanting by the Nigerian government, the ET COO believed the airline still stand the chance of being called upon by the federal government to continue with the packaging of the Nigeria Air project which he said had cost the African airline a huge financial commitment.
“We were awarded the bid and we strongly believed that whatever we did was according to the Nigerian law. Initially, we were advised that the entire process would be further investigated and we were waiting to get a reply from the Nigerian Government on their findings to the process.
“Since we didn’t see any wrong doing in it, we are confident that the Nigerian Government would let us continue the project as soon as possible. We are very confident that the Nigerian Government will once again allow Ethiopian Airlines to serve the Nigerian public by partnering with the local investors in Nigeria. We are very confident.”
Lamenting how the African airlines have been performing abysmally low as regards traffic on the continent, he cited how presently, African airlines could only boast of less than 20 per cent of traffic out of Africa, positing that SAATM would create a better opportunity for airlines to freely navigate in the air transport industry and freely connect industries in Africa in a better way than non-African airlines.
On the Single Africa Air Transport Market (SAATM), which the airline had been championing, Gudeta believed that the African Union (AU) propelled project had progressed gradually, albeit with some teething challenges.
According to him: “SAATM is working but not at the level we would like to see it. In every journey, there is a start, there is a mid-journey and there is a climax that we want to see. SAATM in the next 10 to 15 years from now, might reach the peak we wanted.
“We recently signed a bilateral agreement with Nigeria, which allows Ethiopian Airlines as an African carrier to have more access to the Nigerian market. Same thing applies to other African countries. For instance, we used to fly thrice weekly to Angola, but it was increased to five and today, we are allowed to fly daily into Angola and we might do more in the future.
“However, we still have a few places in Africa where we have some challenges, but we are negotiating with the governments of those places to resolve whatever issue we may have, but SAATM is on the right track now.”
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