Ethiopian Airlines to set up national carrier for Nigeria

Ethiopian Airlines has announced that it had been meeting with Nigeria’s government and relevant private sector players on plans to establish an international carrier for the country.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the airline, Tewolde Gebremariam, who stated this in Abuja on Friday, noted that the lack of a national carrier in Nigeria that could compete favourably with other international brands was not good for the country and for the continent.

This comes amid suggestions that indigenous airline, Air Peace which recently began flights to United Arab Emirates, should be adopted as a national carrier.

“We have been discussing and exploring possibilities to establish or support a strong airline in Nigeria. I don’t mean that there is no strong airline in Nigeria, but we want an airline that can satisfy the demand of the domestic market, the regional market, and international market,” Gebremariam said while responding to a question about why he was in the country.

“We are also in talks with Ghana government to establish Ghana Airways but the biggest market which is Nigeria has been a challenge, to be honest with you. We make sure that when we start something, we start professionally and make sure that it succeeds.”

He noted that the with the demise of Nigeria Airways, there has not been a very strong airline in Nigeria that has the capacity to compete effectively with other large international carriers.

“Nigeria is a very large country but unfortunately, since the demise of Nigeria Airways, we are unfortunate that we don’t have a strong carrier. So, this concern is part of continental concern because in Africa, non-African carriers have the biggest shares. It is around 80-20 per cent ratio. 80 per cent of the traffic between Africa and the rest of the world is carried by non-African carriers.

“The homegrown carriers have only 20 per cent of the market. This is not fair and it used to be 60 per cent some years ago but now it is coming down. We are also threatened because all of us in Africa are only 20 per cent of the market.”