National carrier suffers setback as Aero repaints aircraft

Indications emerged on Wednesday that the plan to unveil a new national carrier before the end of this year might have suffered another setback as Aero Contractors, touted to transform into the nation’s flag bearer, had repainted one of its aircraft.

There were reports last month that Aero, the country’s oldest airline, might have transmuted into the national carrier and changed its name to Nigerian Eagle.

One of Aero’s aircraft, a Boeing 737-500 classic, which was painted with new livery and bore the new name, landed at the Lagos airport in the last week of November and was secretly parked in a private hangar, with reports suggesting that President Goodluck Jonathan would unveil the national carrier before the end of the year.

However, the project appears to have suffered a setback following rumours of disagreements among the partners, a situation that is causing the delay in the unveiling of the new national carrier.

The Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, hinted this during a press briefing on Tuesday when she said that the project, which was initially meant to commence before the end of the year, was being delayed due to a number of challenges.

Admitting that the project was dogged by unexpected hitches, which the government was resolving, Oduah said, “We are trying to rectify that challenge. I think we will do it very soon, but the important thing is that we want to give Nigerians a national carrier that we all aspire to have. The airline will be a true representation of all of us, which will be professionally and efficiently managed.”

It was learnt that officials of the Aero were not comfortable with the continuous grounding of the aircraft painted in the colours of the proposed national carrier, and decided to put it into use, while masking the new name and the symbol.

A top official of the airline, who chose to remain anonymous because he was not permitted to speak on the issue, said the company decided to repaint the plane and put it to commercial use because Aero was not comfortable with its stationary status.

The source said, “We discovered that there were some challenges with the project, which led to the delay in its take-off, and the aircraft was just sitting there during that time without generating anything, and a lot of income in form of revenue was being lost.

“We did not know the immediate plans of the government on the matter; they were not saying anything, and we realised that we were losing lots of revenue in the period; and so, we agreed that there should be a partial repainting of the airline so that we can use it to generate income in the meantime.”

The appearance of the aircraft sighted at the Lagos airport on Monday was a bit different from when it was brought into the country a few weeks back as a new coat of paint had been put over the national colours, while the eagle that was on it when it was brought into the country had disappeared.