Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
The management of Aero Contractors Airline yesterday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, took delivery of five new Q400 aircraft as part of its recovery strategies as most of its aircraft are undergoing maintenance.
The planes which flew into Nigeria from Canada en route Algiers, the capital of Algeria, got to NAIA at 4:06p.m. local time.
Speaking to journalists shortly after taking delivery of the aircraft, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Aero Contractors, Captain Abdullahi Mahmud, noted that: “As you know, we have suspended our scheduled operations, so this is part of our recovery strategies since most of our aircraft are undergoing maintenance and we want to make sure that when we are coming back as we promised, we would come back very strong.”
Mahmud stated that the delivery is a strategic business alliance “that we have with the owner of the aircraft whereby they brought the aircraft and it is like a sharing formula. If you look at the aircraft, they are not like a wet lease because it’s a Nigerian registered aircraft, so it is our crew that is going to operate it. Our pilots and cabin crew are going to operate it. We have finished signing the agreement with them.
“There are five aircraft coming in and this is the first one. The pilots will be going back tonight with Lufthansa, and once they go back, they will bring the second one.”
According to him, “We are getting prepared to resume operation as soon as possible. I don’t want to give exact date for resumption but we are going to resume as soon as possible. So, we are working always because we don’t want to rush coming back. We have taken time, taken a decision and you know when you are pressing a reset button, you want to make sure that you cleaned up the mess, and once you are coming back, you are back well, rather than resume in the same situation you were before-start dragging and people start experiencing delays and cancellation. So, we want to make flights safer and make our partners happy.”
On partnership, the Aero boss hinted that the company was partnering UmzaExpress, stating that: “The formula is not 60-40. The cost of paying the pilot goes to the owner of the aircraft. He is paying for the cabin crew, he is paying for the fuel and at the end of the day, we will look at the cost and from the revenue, aero will still take something out of it despite the fact that he is paying for the pilot, cabin crew, maintenance of the aircraft.”
