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The Federal Government Tuesday fulfill its promise as it unveiled the name of new national carrier as Nigeria Air. The government equally unveiled logo of the carrier which is a wave-like ribbon depicting the nation’s flag, with Motto, “Bringing Nigeria Closer to the World”.

The Minister of State of Aviation, Hadi Sirika at the unveiling of the name and logo of the airline at the ongoing Farnborough Airshow in London in the presence of prospective investors, airline manufacturers and strategic partners said the government equity of the organisation will not be more than five per cent.

He said the need to get the national carrier was in fulfilment of the promise made by President Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians in 2015 to give the country a befitting national airline.

The minister expressed confidence that Nigeria would have a well-run national flag carrier that would be a global player, compliant to international safety standards and customers’ oriented.

This is coming as he hinted of plans to fast track the airline’s International Air Transport Association (IATA) membership.

The Minister further stated that the government had also concluded plans speedily to go through the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) Audit soon, saying, “We are not afraid to go through this because we have demonstrated that Nigeria is a responsible state”.

(IOSA) program is an internationally recognized and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.

The IOSA audit creates a standard that is comparable on a world-wide basis, enabling and maximizing the joint use of audit reports. This has saved the industry over 6400 redundant audits and continues to lead to extensive cost-savings for IOSA participating airlines.

Sirika was worried that 80 per cent of carriers in Africa are non-African, lamenting that Nigeria has not been a player for a very long time, thus, denying the nation humungous revenue and all the advantages that comes from having a national airline.

His words, “We use to be a dominant carrier in the continent of Africa through Nigeria Airways. Sadly, Nigeria Airways is no more. Government has been quite liberal by liberalizing the sector at the tail end of 70s and early 80s to allow private sector to participate in creating a robust airlines that would serve the market, and that would transform the economy of that region”.

Sirika stated that unfortunately, the stories of the initiatives which were well recognized and respected, has not yielded the desired goals of achieving a top class, competitive, efficient and vibrant carriers.

With the government of Nigeria, he stated that it is extremely important that the service is provided, stressing that there is a service that is needed with ability to offer employment opportunities that would kick start, ginger and double up and rush the growth of the economy of Nigeria.

“So we take it as an extremely very important venture. And that is why government thought it has the responsibility upon itself much more than a social in trying to create a new National Carrier that will be typical and private sector led and driven through Public Private Partnership (PPP) arraignment”.

He disclosed that they have selected 81 of those routes comprising 40 domestic, regional and sub-regional routes and 41 international routes, adding that the carrier would be run on Public Private Partnership (PPP).

The investors, he reiterated would invest their money with the strategic partners deciding who runs the airline.

“This airline is a business and not a social service. It is not intended to kill any airline in Nigeria but complement it and promote it. It must be done in a right way so that it will be here to stay. Government will not hold shares beyond five per cent at the top most. This airline is having the backing of the government. Government will come up with funding according to the Business Case that has been delivered to government”.

We will engage the youth of Nigeria because we do believe in the “Not Too Young To Run. We engage them in the campaign to name this airline. We engaged 400,000 Nigerian youth to arrive at the name of the airline. All of their ideas were taken and digested and we came up with what is an average. The airline will take into cognizance the multicultural nature of nation through its diversity. We want to use this airline to make a statement that Yes can we do it. We have a policy where employment goes to Nigerians first before it goes outside.