Nigerian Global

[Lost in Lagos]

God Knows, Nigeria needs a new national carrier. But everything I hear about NigerianGlobal worries me. This may end up making WT look like a success story;

- An aircraft flies from CDG to Lagos, with some very odd looking decals on the side. I was told by a friend at the airport that this was the first service to London - strange, then, that it returned to Paris empty! As a publicity stunt, this is a very expensive exercise. Does someone have money to burn?

- No-one at Heathrow seems to know anything about "Nigerian Global".

- The travel agent in London that I use said that Nigerian Global would be putting all it's business through him, and that he would be selling seats starting at $300 for a round trip. How can they expect to make money? He also mentioned that Business Class will be "the finest in the air", but then added that the people running the airline "had no experience at all in long-haul scheduled aviation".

The vibes are not good. BA and Virgin must be breathing a sigh of relief that, yet again, the Nigerian flag carrier is showing all the signs of being a lemon. :( :( :mad:

[Rani]

Lost in Lagos,

NigerianGlobal indeed appears to be just another publicity stunt to fool uninformed Nigerians of President Obasanjo's "successful aviation and economic policies" prior to the election period. Now that Obasanjo was re-elected, the Airbus A310 aircraft was mysteriously flown back to Europe, citing "maybe we should reconsider this new airline policy", yet AGAIN !!

This is not surprising at all from the current Nigerian government, who just fails at forming a clear, concise and consistent aviation policy. All we see there is mismanagement, mismanagement.....and yet another mismanagement, and that is if you don't want to classify these current events as yet another embarassing JOKE. Aviation Minister Chikwe just doesn't get enough of embarassing herself, unless she agreed, for secret motives, to orchestrate this show for President Obasanjo. But in any case Mrs. Chikwe and her buddies at the ministry lost all credibility when she declared to the media "I'm sick and tired of the West selling irresponsibly geriatric aircraft to Nigeria".. it obviously says something about her credentials... I mean where did this woman come from?

I read from a European source that the NigerianGlobal A310-300 was used for scenes in a new movie (now for some reason I fully believe this).....so this confirms some funny things are going on behind the scenes. Did Obasanjo get a discount for leasing this aircraft for a week? And what about glorious Triaton? I found no material on them whatsoever on the internet.

The Nigerian government is clearly incapable of forming a strong, viable national airline. If only they just listened ONCE to the advice that they PAY for (IFC and World Bank). They are more interested in expanding market access for foreign airlines. The private carriers are begging for international routes since years ago and all we see is one misleading announcement after the other about allowing them to ply international routes.

Hani

[Thunderball]

Hmmmmm. Triaton definitely exist, or at least they did one/two years ago. They have been involved in Hadj work, they were involved with an airline in West Africa (Superb? Superior? something like this) and I heard about a year ago through contacts in the US that they were involved in a deal with Ghana to operate aircraft to London, but I think that project crashed and burned.

But I agree that this Nigerian Global business doesn't sound too good. :( :( :(

[tally]

Mr Rani,
You might be frustrated with the current attitude of govt towards aviation, that does not mean Global is a fluke. The president does not need a superflous airline to win re-election. Also, aviation does not constitute a significant portion of the economy.
The current govt is not ready to invest a dime in WT, they have always indicated this. They wanted to scrap the airline awhile back, but the minister and others pleaded that it could be salvaged or another entity created to take over the int'l ops. So that was how we got to Air Nigeria and the likes.
Did the minister make mistakes? yes, I believe she did, but I believe she and awhole bunch of people felt the domestic operators did not have the ability to go int'l. To be very honest, which of those guys have the capability to operate effectively on the int'l routes.
Let us not be too emotional about the aviation business in nigeria. There is a clear lack vision in this field. Like in the US, govt does not lead innovations, private enterprise does. Until private interests in nigeria get serious, we will be dogged by this petty issues.

[non sched]

Nigerian Airways being sued by Air Atlanta. The beat goes on!



Even with liquidation staring it in the face, the ailing national carrier, Nigeria Airways swam deeper into troubled waters yesterday when a court action was instituted against it over unpaid debts by Air Atlanta Icelandic, an aircraft leasing company based in Iceland.

The new suit is coming at a time when the High Court of Justice in London is trying to apply the Insolvency Act of 1986, to wind up the operations of the national carrier following a crushing debt overhang owed local and international concerns, which it has been unable to offset.

Although the actual debt owed Air Atlanta has been a subject of controversy because of the different figures quoted as being owed by Nigeria Airways, the Aviation Minister, Dr.(Mrs) Kema Chikwe, had recently disclosed that the names of those who ran the airline into the debt would be published. There has been claims and counter claims of $10 million and $7 million as the debt owed the aircraft leasing company.