31 January 08
COURT RESTRAINS FEDERAL AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA (FAAN) FROM RELOCATING VIRGIN NIGERIA’S DOMESTIC OPERATIONS TO MURTALA MOHAMMED AIRPORT DOMESTIC TERMINAL 2 Lagos, Nigeria: 31 January 2008: The Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos has today restrained the Federal Ministry of Transportation (Aviation) and other relevant Agencies including the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from forcefully relocating Virgin Nigeria’s domestic operations pending the determination on notice of the order brought before his court.
The case came up for hearing as Virgin Nigeria raised concerns over the violation of the fundamental basis of its formation which is creating a hub in Lagos as stipulated by the Federal Ministry of Aviation (on behalf of the FGN ) and its technical Partners.
Another key concern presented to the judge by Virgin Nigeria over the proposed relocation is the safety operational status of the Murtala Mohammed Airport domestic terminal 2. Granting the exparte order, Justice Ibrahim Auta of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi refered to the Memorandum of Mutual undertaking (MMU) which recognises that Virgin Nigeria has a legal right to carry out domestic, regional and international flight operations from its hub at Murtala Mohammed International Airport.
He also cited the IATA report of November 7th 2007 which rated the MM2 as falling below operational safety standards.
Virgin Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Conrad Clifford while reacting to the unwarranted attitude of FAAN over the use of armed security Agents to demolish Virgin Nigeria’s domestic business class lounge said that it is unfortunate that relevant authorities have turned a deaf ear to the MMU as well as safety concerns by embarking on forceful ejection of Virgin Nigeria’s domestic operations.
“Virgin Nigeria is committed to continually offer safe flight operations and we will not accede to intimidation to compromise standards”, said Conrad Clifford.
It is instructive to note that one of the concerns raised by the IATA team was the size of the apron being relatively too small for the proposed scale of operations amongst other key safety operational issues.
Dear All,
As you may or may not be aware, we were served notice by the NCAA a week ago that we would have to move our domestic flights from MMIA to the new Domestic terminal MM2 by midnight tonight.
In the interim, we attempted unsuccessfully to engage the parastatals in discussion on this. Last night our domestic business class lounge was demolished.
As a result we were forced to seek protection from the courts and have today received a High Court injunction restraining any further action to move us to MM2 or to prevent us from operating at MMIA until a High Court hearing takes place to establish the legality of the initial directive from NCAA.
We are therefore assuming that barring any illegal actions by the parastatals, we will operate our normal schedules tomorrow, albeit we no longer have a Business Class Lounge for the comfort of our premium passengers. Based upon legal advice, we also believe that we will continue to enjoy the right to operate all flights from MMIA unhindered as originally set out in the MMU (Mutual Memorandum of Undertaking) with the FGN under which Virgin Nigeria was established.
We expect there to be a High Court hearing which will underline the rights that were granted to Virgin Nigeria in this respect.
Some of you may ask, why not simply move to MM2?
Strategically, we cannot operate an effective hub from two home bases, that’s why FGN granted us this right in the first place!
Secondly, based on our current assessment, supported by an IATA Audit Report conducted in November 2007, MM2 is not able to accommodate the monopoly of all domestic airline operations that was granted under its concession. The deficiencies would have a negative impact on safety, security, passenger comfort and operational viability were we to move there.
And finally, were we forced to operate from MM2 we would have to scale down from our current level of operation with all the contingent negative impacts on profitability and the growth aspirations for the airline.
Aviation in Nigeria has been through a massive change for the better ever since we started operations. A move such as this would undo much of the progress that has been made by all of those engaged in aviation in Nigeria thus far: the parastatals, the Airlines and the Regulators.
Our Chairman and Board of Directors are confident that the legal process which FGN supports will see that good sense, reason and fairness will prevail.
I’d like to express our appreciation to our staff in Nigeria and particularly at MMIA for your steadfastness and loyalty in the face of baffling behaviour by some of our good friends in the industry.
With Best regards
Conrad