The Federal government says it will call for proposals from intending investors in National Carrier on the 8th of March 2022.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika revealed that “the Transitional Adviser is going to request for proposal next week Monday” while hosting executive members of Association of transportation and Aviation correspondents in his office on Tuesday.
He explained that the federal government will own 5 percent stake in the national Carrier while Nigerians will own 46 percent and the international partner airlines 49 percent stakes.
“We will give them some weeks to respond to the request, then we will announce the winning bidder. However, in the interim, because government intends to own only 5 percent of the airline shares, we are going to go ahead with the AOC which has commenced since”.
The Minister further stated that “by April, we should be able to have our AOC ready, which means, we are ready to start”.
“And once the AOC is in our hands, the offices are secured, the Interim Board is being constituted, and they finish signing the contract, we will announce who they are.
“Currently, they are called Interim because they will hold the Airline in an interim bases up to the time the investors will come and take over”.
Sirika further said the Interim Board members “are noble people, some are Nigerians, some are not. I think they are about nine of them to run the airline and they will begin operations between now and July” he stated.
He said that between the trial period, Nigeria Air will run Lagos and Abuja, “and as they situation demand, they may extent to Port Harcourt and other parts of the country.
“I am very glad it is happening, we took our time to do due diligence in order to get value for our money” adding that government has no stake in the national carrier venture.
The Minister also said the airline will bring competition into the aviation sector and forced prices of airfare to go down.
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