The Nation Newspaper

Tag: flight

  • Last Flight to Abuja berths

    Last Flight to Abuja berths

    Fans of the thrilling film, Last Flight to Abuja that hit the screens last year, do not have to wait to get to cinemas before enjoying the flick. Due to popular demand, the movie, starring Omotola Jolade Ekeinde, Jim Iyke, Jide Kosoko and Obi Emelonye, was released on DVD last Monday.

    The movie is set in Nigeria and captures some travellers who boarded the last Flamingo Airways flight from Lagos to Abuja, on a fateful Friday night in 2006. The special effects contained in the film have fuelled the anticipation of fans and Nigeria’s film market is already bracing up for the surprises, it was learnt.

    According to the Director, Emelonye, the effect took his crew five months to achieve.

    Citing how it took long months of studio work to achieve the thrilling special effects, about plane crashes which set the movie apart in most international festivals and award events, he said it required patience and creativity.

    “Emboldened by the success of my previous film, Mirror Boy, I set my sights on a more technically tasking project. I knew the challenges would be immense. To tell the story with the kind of visual realism necessary, we had to use a mixture of real life footage, computer-generated imagery, 3D animation and visual effects. My team, made up mainly young Nigeria animators, worked on the post production of Last Flight to Abuja for 5 months and what we got was a level of technical achievement that belies our micro budget. I guess in today’s digital democracy, if you can dream it; then you can achieve it. This film really underlines that fact and I am happy that it has empowered a lot of young filmmakers to try and tell stories that they would have been too scared to touch,” said Emelonye.

    The film, which was inspired by the incessant cases of plane crashes in Nigeria, has won many awards at film festivals across Europe and America, capping it with the ‘Best Film by an African Abroad Prize’, which it won at the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards, AMAA in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, last month.

    Meanwhile, as part of the programmes scheduled for the release of the film, the cast and crew led by Mrs Ekeinde, would be handing out flight tickets to London to winners, who would emerge in a lucky dip, according to him. However, only fans of the film who complete and return the lucky dip coupons contained in their film jackets would be qualified for the draw.

    “The movie has garnered a lot of fans in the past 12 months, going from one country to another, and from one film festival to another, but now the opportunity has come to let these fans own what they have always desired. Interestingly, some lucky fans would also smile as the Nollywood Factory and her associates would be giving out flight tickets to some of our lucky fans at an event that would have the fans also meeting the cast and crew members of the film”, he said.

    Last Flight to Abuja, also the first Nollywood film to be shot mostly on an airplane also featured the likes of Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Ali Nuhu, Olumide Bakare, Franca Brown, Uche Odoputa, Anthony Monjaro, Uru Eke and Celine Loader amongst others.

  • Pillars storm Central African Rep on chartered flight

    Pillars storm Central African Rep on chartered flight

    Players and officials of Nigeria Premier League defending champions, Kano Pillars will this morning travel leave for their CAF Champions League preliminary 2nd leg tie against Olympique Real Bangui by a chartered IRS Airline.

    The Nigeria representative, which had earlier planned to travel to CAR via the Murtala International Airport, Lagos, changed their plan and chose to travel direct from the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport on the IRS Airline.

    The club media officer, Idris Malikawa who disclosed this to SportingLife on Wednesday, said the delegation will take off by 10am in the morning.

    Malikawa further said that the 58-man delegation, which is led by the Kano State Commissioner for Information, Internal Affairs, Youth, Sports and Culture Prof.Umar Farouk, will be in CAR to give support to the Nigerian champions.

    The contigent consist of 18 players, seven technical crew members, club GM Abba Galadima, NFF representative Sheu Adamu, board members and the club’s supporters boss and members.

    The club spokesperson also informed: “The team is in good spirit ahead of the game on Sunday and will go for victory in the tie that would decide the team that advance to the next stage of the continent’s elite inter-club championship.”

    Malikawa further added: “There are no injury worries in the team as the coaches will have a tough task naming the 11-man team for the game.”

    Recall Kano Pillars, semi-finalists four years ago, were almost as ruthless with a 5-1 hammering of the visitors from CAR in Kano as Nafiu Ibrahim struck twice.

  • Passengers decry South African Airways flight delays

    Passengers decry South African Airways flight delays

    SOME passengers are worried over the delay in flights of South African Airways (SAA) from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.

    Two passengers, Frank Adeluyi and Williams Oladeji, said the delays were having negative impact on their business, warning that further delays might force them to seek redress.

    Adeluyi said the problem is becoming worrisome.

    Oladeji said poor service delivery was no longer acceptable in the global aviation community.

    He called on the airline and the affected service providers to raise the bar of service to avoid any unnecessary infraction on passengers.

    These worries are coming on the heels of recent delays in the take-off time of the carrier, which now ranges from 40 to 50 minutes.

    According to investigations, the delay in flights is not connected with the ongoing renovation of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, which led to the switching into new processes and procedures for check-in. This,observers say, might have made SAA to change its ground handler at the airport.

    Passengers, it was learnt, are disturbed over the trend, which they said, was taking a huge toll on their travels.

    In the last one week, attempts to reduce the delays in flight have not abated raising concerns whether the change in service provider for ground and passenger handling may be responsible for the problem.

    Investigations reveal that the switch from the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCOAVIANCE), PLC to the Skyways Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL), may have caused some integration challenges that are affecting the operations of SAA.

    SAHCOL, it was learnt, since it took over ground handling of SAA at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, is poised to render quality services, though some passengers allege that the delays in flights of the carrier might have arisen because of alleged poor services by the firm.

    Some passengers also alleged that equipment incapacity and service delivery might linger until the ground handling firms in Nigeria prepare for the take- over of airlines with adequate operations.

    However, a source close to SAA said the airline should not be blamed for the hitch.

    He added that because the ground handing equipment at the airport broke down, officials of the firm have been loading baggage into the aircraft manually.

    An official of the ground handling firm, who refused to be named, said it was working hard to rectify the problem.

     

  • Capital flight

    Capital flight

    SANUSI Lamido Sanusi, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), made the startling revelation that about $11bn (N1.73trillion) moved out of the country through the nation’s airports so far this year. He spoke at an event organised by Bank Directors Association of Nigeria, in Lagos.

    The CBN governor in his vintage self captures the repulsive trend: “In this country, almost everybody uses the dollar. This year alone, the records we have based on the declared amount at the airports is getting to about $11bn in cash that was taken out of Nigeria….Why would anyone walk out of an airport with $5million? Well, they will say it is because the law has made it clear that you can take any amount so long as you have declared it and I cannot stop you.’’

    These figures, though scary, might be an understatement in view of the country’s poor record-keeping profile. Thence, coming from someone who should know, we feel that whatever the released documented official figures now, it is obvious that it could be higher. In effect, if legal capital flight could be as high as this, then, smuggled money through the airports could double this amount.

    The pointers: Just recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arrested one 24 year-old Abubakar Tijani Sheriff for attempting to smuggle $7million (about N1.101billion) out of the country to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He had escaped security scrutiny from other agencies at the airport but was apprehended at the point of boarding by operatives of the commission. During routine airport checks, he lied that he had a sum of $4.5million on him but a thorough screening showed that he was actually carrying $7,049,444 (Seven million, forty-nine thousand, four hundred and forty-four United States Dollars). Last week too, a man was reportedly arrested for attempting to smuggle $350,000 out of the country, among others too numerous to catalogue.

    We are aware of reports that some Nigerian citizens are routinely arrested at airports in Europe and North America for currency smuggling. In virtually all these cases, the money is lost as they are never repatriated to the country. All these underscore the countless money smuggling acts that escaped the scrutiny of security agencies at airports across the country.

    It is bad for the economy that the recorded amount of capital flight from the country outweighs its Total Foreign Direct Investment profile. The amount of money ferried out of the country this year alone, as declared by Mallam Sanusi, is more than a third of the country’s total national income. If a projected estimate of the undocumented figures siphoned abroad is added, then, it could be higher than the total national income. This portends a serious problem ahead for a country that can only boast of a mere $1billion in its Sovereign Wealth Fund.

    The government should do something drastic to curtail the high rate of capital flight. The documented amount of $11billion moved through the airports to develop the economies of foreign countries is scandalous for a country that is still groping to provide employment, quality education and necessary infrastructure, etc. Perhaps, the time has come for the government to device a means that would encourage wealthy Nigerians to invest in the national economy. This can only be achieved though, with the right investment climate and political stability.

  • Medview opts for scheduled flights

    the number of indigenous carriers will soon increase with the coming of Medview Airline.

    Medview is famous for the yearly flight operations to Saudi Arabia for Muslim pilgrims.

    Sources close to the airline said, over at the weekend that one of the aircraft to be used for the flight operations, a Boeing 737-400 is, expected to arrive in the country from Buckarest, Romania. The second aircraft will come on later.

    The source said the inspection unit of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had gone to Romania to inspect the aircraft, which was approved for operations by the regulatory .

    It was learnt that the airline hopes to fly to at least four routes – Lagos-Abuja, Abuja-Port Harcourt, Maiduguri-Yola and Lagos -Port Harcourt.

    Last week, the Managing Director of Medview Alhaji Munir Bankole and other management team were at the Murtala Mohammed Airport Two (MMA2) inspecting the vacant offices within the complex, ahead of commencement of operations.

    Bankole in an interview said the team was at the complex to inspect offices that would be used for its daily operations.

    He said: “As you can see, we are here to inspect the offices for the commencement of our daily flight operations to some airports in the next couple of weeks. We have undergone the necessary inspections as stipulated by NCAA, but I can’t tell you categorically when we will start, but we are starting very soon.”

    Bankole explained that one of the Unique Selling Proportions of the airline would be on time departure and adherence to the safety rules of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and NCAA.