Ibom Air Targets Domestic, Regional Market Dominance

Chinedu Eze

With modern airport facility, advanced aircraft fleet, Ibom Air is pushing for domestic and regional dominance of the air travel market from Nigeria.

With long-term vision from the state through succeeding administrations, Akwa Ibom has prioritized aviation as vehicle for economic development and job creation.

It has consistently trained its citizens in different areas of aviation with a goal to play dominant role in taking people from one place to another by air.

The state is gradually realizing the ultimate goal of that vision. With a new airport terminal which is arguably the best in Nigeria and one of the best in West Africa, Uyo has established itself as a hub, meeting all the critical requirements of hub operations, which include a terminal, a maintenance facility and a good aircraft fleet.

This was not realized in a day. It followed years of gestation, planning and actualization and today, Ibom Air is connecting cities in Nigeria and it has tested a regional operation with Lagos-Accra and later Uyo-Accra flights, which serve as harbinger to its plan to add more regional destinations in the coming months.

On Tuesday the airline welcomed another brand-new Airbus A220-300 at the Victor Attah International Airport in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

With the additional state-of-the-art equipment in its fleet, the airline said that it would resume flight service to hitherto suspended destinations, expand operations to regional networks.

The sophisticated Airbus A220-300, known for its fuel-efficiency, was flown home directly from the Airbus assembly facility in Mirabel, Canada.

Speaking during the event, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno, disclosed some  operational statistics which illustrated the airline`s consistent progress from inception and now rearing to become major regional operator.

According to the Governor, the airline has airlifted about 4,953,512 passengers to date across 65,152 scheduled flights and  Ibom it is set to cross the 5 million passenger threshold before the close of September 2026.

The Governor said the addition of the new A220-300 has increased the airline`s  fleet to 10　aircraft, comprising seven Bombardier CRJ-900s and three Airbus A220-300s. Five of these aircraft were acquired under the current Governor, Eno`s  administration.

“Over N60 billion has been directly spent in the Akwa Ibom local economy through airline operations. The carrier maintains 753 full-time direct employees, with Akwa Ibom indigenes making up 64 percent (478 personnel) of the workforce, alongside an estimated 2,000 indirect jobs sustained across the state,” Eno said.

 The Governor disclosed that the Ibom Air which currently services seven domestic destinations and one regional service, which is Accra, Ghana, will expand its network from eight  to 12 destinations and grow its route operations from eight to 15. This includes one new domestic connection and three new regional routes to Douala (Cameroon), Libreville (Gabon), and Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).

Ibom Air’s Chairman, Mfon Udo,  said the arrival of the high tech  A220 immediately restores core domestic frequencies while laying the operational foundation for intra-African connectivity.

“With the arrival of our new A220-300, we are going to expand our activities both domestically and regionally. Immediately, we will return to our normal frequencies in the domestic system, such as three daily flights to Uyo from Lagos and Abuja, and restoring our Lagos–Abuja service back to seven daily frequencies.

“Most important is the regional route. At the moment, we are only flying Uyo to Accra. We will be going to Douala, Libreville, and Malabo in the first phase, and expand further across Africa over the next two years as we receive the remainder of our 10 ordered aircraft via direct purchase and lease-to-own structures.”

Addressing market dynamics, Udom emphasized that domestic passenger throughput directly correlates with economic momentum, asserting that Ibom Air is positioned to capture a dominant share of regional growth.

“We continue to expand our ecosystem, and that is what gives us the strength, new ideas, and all that. With the arrival of our new A220, we are going to expand our activities, both domestic and regional. So, immediately we will return to our normal frequencies in the domestic system.

Speaking to newsmen at the unveiling of the new aircraft, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Aviation who is also in charge of the Ministry of Aviation and Airport Development, Owem Ekanem, said that Akwa Ibom has trained indigenes of the state in different technical areas of aviation.

“Within the Ministry of Aviation itself, we have trained engineers. We have even trained those engineers who man the MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul). And the state has a pilot training scheme where we have trained pilots. Some of those pilots today fly for Ibom Air. So that is just to show that it is a planned programme. And, you know, in the country we have paucity of pilots. So, what we have done is to ensure we don’t get into that logjam that we might not have pilots to operate our flights. This is why the state has trained pilots. And like I said, some of them are already flying. We have also trained engineers. Some are currently in Ethiopia, as we speak,” he disclosed.

On the airport and the airline, Ekanem said that Akwa Ibom is creating a city within a city. 

“We are developing, like you said, the MRO, which will bring in that needed foreign exchange. We are also improving connectivity. We are also boosting tourism. His Excellency is big on tourism. We are also creating employment opportunity for the teeming Akwa Ibom youths. We also have cargo project in view. So it is an entire aviation ecosystem that we want to extend to,\\ Ekanem added.

A stakeholder and Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from Akwa Ibom state, Senator Emmanuel Iwagunzin, told THISDAY that the decision to develop aviation as key legacy of the state was a collective decision in which he also played a significant role.

According to the Senator, the state political leaders who conceived the vision resisted oppositions from the top political echelons of Nigeria, when they were discouraged from realizing their vision. And today, the rest is history, as Nigerians are wont to say.

“In 1999, it was Victor Atta (former governor of the state) and myself and Senator Udo Udoma that went to Houston (United States). And there we conceived the idea of this airport and the aviation industry in Akwa Ibom. And it was from there that we visited a couple of installations.

And we settled on who should come and develop Akwa Ibom airport. And by God’s grace, when we were acquiring this place (the airport), it became a very difficult situation because the President at that time, did not want us to build an airport. He said, if Victor Atta had so much money, he should give it to the federal government to build and expand Calabar International Airport.   But he came anyways and laid the foundation despite the protest. So we are happy that this airport has come to stay,” the Senator said.

Not only that the airport and the airline have come to stay, they play critical role in the economic development of the state.