Okonkwo: Connecting More Cities Brings Nigerians Together

In a media chat to mark its fifth anniversary, the Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, Professor Obiora Okonkwo, spoke about how the airline has brought Nigerians together by connecting more cities. He also enumerated the airline’s achievements and challenges faced in the industry. Chinedu Eze was there and brings the excerpts:

Despite being a young airline, you said you have scored many firsts. How do you feel about these achievements?

Yes, we are the first airline to touch down in Ekiti, and also the first commercial airline in Bayelsa.  You see, this experience of being the first to fly to these destinations, actually is a very powerful one. I recall our first flight to Bayelsa, when I sat next to the Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri. When we were descending into Bayelsa, seeing the landscape of that beautiful state, the man with deep sentiment told me, chairman, you don’t know what you have done for the people of Bayelsa State.  Can you imagine that this is the first time 90 per cent of the people in this aircraft have seen Bayelsa from the air?  It was very, very powerful. 

I will now relate that to our visit to Ekiti.  During the novel flight, Chief Afe Babalola of Afe Babalola University did everything possible for us to pay him a courtesy visit because he couldn’t come out to the airport.  But because of time, we could not go but we promised him that we would be back.

And we made it during our retreat. We went to pay a courtesy visit to him when we signed the MoU (United Nigeria Airlines signed a 10-year MoU with Afe Babalola University (ABUAD) in February 2026 to train engineering students in aeronautical and aerospace maintenance). Amongst so many other sentiments, when I finished speaking, during his response, with almost tears in his eyes, like he confessed, he said that was one of the happiest days of his life.  Because United Nigeria brought to reality his long-time prayer, we could think of even going to Ikogosi (Ekiti state).  And they have said, even the admission into their school this year cannot be compared.  The parents are happy, the students are happy.  And ladies and gentlemen, all this alone for me is worth more than financial gain.

It is a good sense of fulfilment that we are contributing to the development of this country and creating opportunities.  We are living our dream uniting Nigerians by connecting the cities. And we have a whole lot more of other routes that we are going to open from now till December. 

We also remember that we were the first to fly to Ebonyi. So, I really think that for these people to find us worthy, put their trust in us, we are very, very happy. And we are promising that more of these will come, we will never let them down.

How many passengers have you airlifted since you started operation, and how hopeful are you in your plans to acquire more aircraft?

Starting from the last question, yes, that is correct.  It is a big concern for us operators that we don’t have transit facility at our airports. 

It makes it very difficult to create a hub in Nigeria.  What that simply means is that if those things are not in place, it will be very, very difficult for us to achieve our aim of flying continental and intercontinental service.

But the engagement we are having with Minister of Aviation will address that. He is very, very interested in this and I am hopeful it will yield the expected results before we kick off.

This is because we must be able to get people from other regions into Nigeria, the way it is done in other places. That is, you don’t need to check out and check in before you board the next flight. 

We are engaging with the Minister and we are getting positive results

We have a new product now in United Nigeria.  This new product is flying to more cities.  We want to take a student leaving in Ekiti, but going to Port Harcourt, Kano or Enugu to his final destination.  We don’t want the student journey to terminate in Lagos or Abuja, which is just a local hub now.  We want to be able to take the person beyond Lagos and Abuja. That is, get into Lagos, Abuja, move in a transit arrangement to Kano, Port Harcourt to Enugu. 

So that discussion is going on and we are hopeful that within the very shortest possible time we shall have that arrangement in place because it will definitely help our plan.  

Yes, we are aware of the progress being made with the Cape Town Convention, the new practice direction, the new rating that we have now is higher than most countries in Europe. Thanks to the Minister of Aviation. United Nigeria has been an integral part of it, all the meetings locally and internationally.  And yes, we are very, very well positioned to be the early beneficiaries.  We have a lot of positive discussions going on in that direction.  But you know, aircraft is not something that is put in the warehouse, or a store for you to pick. By the time this agreement was made, a whole lot of these lessors have their aircraft committed with different operators.  It will take a while to kick in, but we are aware.

And we have gone into agreement signing with some lessors that the first set of aircraft that will come in from them, in a very short time, we will be one of the beneficiaries. But we see this more or less materializing to a very fruitful position from the year 2027, when some of the aircraft that already committed will be returned to the lessors.

Because OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) are meeting with us and some of them are factoring expectations. Because it is only when the lessee gets a new supply that you release the old contract. So, we are very hopeful that it will benefit us. We are in the forefront of it.

On the number of passengers carried since we started, so far, we have done about 2.5 million over a five-year period. With the size of fleet, we have now, we are definitely going to exceed one million passengers within this year.

How will you assess the situation of unruly passenger’s behaviour in recent years and what are the measures put in place to address it?

I don’t know how many of you can recall what I said in my interview on television in January 2025. I had said that the worst thing that was happening to our aviation then was unruly passengers. We had overcome the problem of policy instability, and so on and so forth. If there is anything really, anything that is not pleasant to me in this sector, it is the problem of unruly passengers.  Every other thing I can tell you, I don’t mind.  I am even okay with working 24 hours.

Let me tell you guys my last journey.  I travelled in January to Dublin. I flew our great airline, Air Peace to London. Everything was family, everything was great.

On arrival, I had to take another airline to Dublin. On arrival in Dublin, I was on business class, had only one luggage.  I did not see my luggage. This was happening last month. The worst was that I did not even see anyone to complain to. The nearest person I could talk to referred me to a system that was standing there.  They said, go and fill in the complaint. In my desire to talk to somebody, I even claimed that I am not computer literate, so that I could get help, the person walked away from me. I went back to my hotel and I did not get my luggage. I managed to fill the form. Around 6:00 am they sent a message; when I woke up the next day by 8:00 am, I saw a message that I could come to the airport to pick up my bag. Not minding that I have filled the form that I wanted my bag to be delivered to the hotel. I hurriedly went to the airport, I got there and there was nobody to talk to. 

 This time I was given a phone.  I should just call the phone and whoever talked to me, I should tell him my problem.

At the end of the day, I got another message while I was there, that my bag would be delivered to my hotel.

Each message I got, I forwarded it to the minister and DG NCAA because we were on the same trip in the same hotel. And as a matter of fact, DG NCAA, in that conference the year before, did not get his luggage too. He had to go to the airport the next day to get his luggage 24 hours later.

On the day of my departure, my flight was supposed to be 12: 00 pm.  We rescheduled a lot of appointments for me to meet my 12: 00 pm flight.  Only for me to wake up around 8:00 am and got a message that my flight had been cancelled and rescheduled for 8:40 pm that evening.  Meanwhile, my connecting flight from Gatwick was 9:00 pm. They scheduled my flight at 8: 40 pm. Yet nobody to talk to, nobody to call. And then I was asking myself, how I would have reacted if this was Nigeria? Maybe I would have had more opportunity to beat some people back there.

But that is the story of one trip and that was my last trip.  But in all of these, nobody was bothered.  This thing happens all over the world. What did I do?  I had to buy another ticket to be able to meet my connecting flight from Gatwick back to Abuja.  As of today, I have not received any compensation.  Nobody’s even talking to me about my refund.

So, you judge it. Our passengers are not fare to us. In a situation you tell them, this aircraft is here, it has a technical issue.  It cannot fly. They say it must fly.

Weather is not good in Port Harcourt. The will insist, if weather is not good in Port Harcourt, why are you going to Ilorin? You must wait until you go to Port Harcourt. Is it fair? These are the issues. It is a great thing of worry. We need a whole lot of education for our passengers. We believe in the rights of our passengers. Nigeria is the only country you refund passenger on the spot. It does not happen in any other place. 

You have cancelled your flight. Now, now, now, now, my money.  I want to buy another ticket. We give the money on the spot.  We obey a lot of rules and we are ready to do more.  But being physical (unruly) is too much.

This thing happens all over the world. We don’t pray that it happens.  So that unruly passenger thing is not getting better. I would not lie to you. So, we need help. 

You spoke about positive aspects of government policies.  Are there also government policies that are hindering your airline operations?

Well, the government has done a lot. We will continue to expect them to do more. 

What is your airline doing in terms of corporate social responsibility?

For our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, we are launching our United Nigeria Airlines Foundation. It shows our commitment. Our achievement is nothing, if we do not touch lives.  We have been doing a lot of CSR up to this day, but the most recent was last week. We laid the foundation ceremony of a community health centre and solar powered borehole within the airport community of Ekiti. 

I want us to consider something very important.  Within the Nigerian context, when we talk about CSR, we only think of brick and mortar, like the donation of Keke Napep, and sewing machine, or wheel barrow. But the most important thing in life is knowledge.  As you may know, I am a professor, but I teach for free to bridge knowledge gap in our society.