Chinedu Eze
The Managing director/Chief Executive Officer of Medview Airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole, has assured shareholders of the company that the airline will soon regain its footing on its routes, especially the domestic scene, saying all efforts were on by the management to bring three aircraft back to operations soon.
He gave this assurance during the 3rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the airline, saying that the airline has secured loan from its banker, First Bank Nigeria Limited, to finance the maintenance of one of the aircraft at Aero maintenance base in Lagos, adding that the others that were in Israel and Estonia would soon be on ground in Lagos.
He also disclosed that the airline, from the loan, secured a B777-200 that would be used for Hajj operations beginning from July 10.
“Medview airline is one of the airlines approved by the Federal government for hajj operations, we have 17 States and we have covered 15, we signed a contract to airlift a lot of pilgrims for 2019. We got a loan from First bank so we got the B777-200 aircraft for the company. The aircraft would be used to commence hajj operations in Kaduna by July 10 and we have a total of 10,600 pilgrims from Kaduna, we expect a turnaround in 2019,” he said.
On domestic operations, Bankole said: We have three classic aircraft which were all due for C-check at the same time. One was in Israel, another was in Estonia and third was flying, but we got the money from the bank to put the second aircraft to use and so, it had been taken to Aero Maintenance base, I assure you that the third aircraft would soon be on ground, because domestic operations is our major market, we promise to do more than expected.
“Expect a beautiful operations when the three aircraft would be fully operational soon and each aircraft would be yielding about N376 million in a month. We also assured you that we Will not lease aircraft, therefore, we are working with a strategic partner in order to get a new aircraft into our fleet. 50 cabin crew have already completed their recurrent recurrent training while 10 workers have been recalled to join the training in preparation for operations”, he said.
Bankole, who disclosed that Medview had signed an agreement with Ethiopian airline on maintenance of its B777 aircraft, explained that the company disposed off one of it aircraft because of huge maintenance cost.
“The management took a decisive response and disposed the aircraft for the benefit of the company . As I have always stated, the Board and management is continually seeking to achieved the best growth for the company and Medview is firmly on the path to improved performance, sustained growth, profitability and adequate returns to all stakeholders within the shortest possible period of time”, he said
