The Nation Newspaper

Tag: flights

  • BA stops flights to Uganda airport

    British Airways has said it is stopping all flights to and from Uganda as they are “no longer commercially viable”.

    The last flight out from Entebbe airport to London’s Heathrow will depart on October 3, the United Kingdom (UK) carrier said.

    British Airways operates four flights a week to Entebbe.

    However, their rates are not as competitive as the ones offered by other airlines, says British Broascasting Corporation (BBC) Uganda analyst, Alex Jakana.

    It offers the luxury of direct flights from Uganda to the UK, but some Ugandan travellers prefer to use airlines going via the Middle East, despite the longer journey time, he says. In a statement, British Airways said it was “sorry for any disruption” to travellers who had already booked their flights.

    Entebbe is Uganda’s busiest and only international airport.

    Every week, at least 49 domestic flights and 490 international flights depart from there, according to the travel website Tripadvisor.

  • Etihad extends flights to Mumbai, New Delhi

    Etihad extends flights to Mumbai, New Delhi

    Etihad Airways  has announced that Mumbai and New Delhi will become its first destinations in India to be served with triple-daily flights, strengthening its unparalleled offering with Jet Airways into and out of the country.

    Both cities will be upgraded from their current double-daily frequencies, with the third daily flight to Mumbai starting on February, 15  2015 and to New Delhi on May 1, 2015. The development will provide business and leisure travellers with more options throughout the day between the UAE and India, and enhance India’s connections with markets across Etihad Airways’ global network.

    Along with Jet Airways’ services, both airlines will connect Abu Dhabi to 14 Indian cities, with over 200 return flights each week. This includes five flights a day to Mumbai, four flights a day to New Delhi, three flights a day to Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi, two flights a day to Ahmedabad and Kozhikode, and daily flights to Jaipur and Trivandrum.

    Etihad Airways will also launch a daily service to Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, on 15 February 2015 to support its long-term development plan in India, and Jet Airways has announced it will soon launch daily services between Abu Dhabi and Goa, Lucknow and Pune.

    In addition to the airline’s network developments, Etihad Airways has upgraded its aircraft on a number of Indian routes, including the debut of three-class, wide-body aircraft on select flights. The airline will also operate its new Boeing 787-9 on Mumbai evening services in January 2015.

  • Emirates begins Abuja-Dubai daily flights

    Emirates  has connected Abuja to its network. It is Emirates 26th destination in Africa and its 144th worldwide.

    Emirates flight EK785 has landed at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport marking the start of the airline’s daily service to its second destination in Nigeria. Services to Lagos were launched over 10 years ago.

    “This new daily flight provides a convenient point to point service for our customers between Abuja and Dubai, and it will meet and further stimulate a vibrant market demand between the two cities. It will also serve our customers in Nigeria and around the network with additional connectivity and daily frequency. Our leisure and business passengers from Nigeria can now better connect to the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Asia via our hub in Dubai. Customers in Abuja can experience our A380 flagship aircraft to 29 destinations around the world, including popular ones like Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New York, Jeddah and London,” said Adil Al Ghaith, Emirates vice president, Commercial Operations, Northern and Western Africa.

    “With a fast growing economy, Nigeria is a key market for Emirates. We started operations to Nigeria on January 2, 2004, with four flights a week from Dubai to Lagos. Since then, our operations have steadily grown with increases in both frequency and capacity between Lagos and Dubai. Today, we fly twice daily to Lagos and now we have added Abuja, giving us a total of more than 12,200 seats a week, which will further stimulate business and leisure travel, as well as trade,” he added.

    Emirates’ Dubai-Abuja route is served by an Airbus A340-300, which offers 267 seats in a three-class configuration – 12 First Class, 42 Business Class and 213 Economy Class seats. Customers on the route experience Emirates’ award-winning hospitality – from multi-national cabin crew and gourmet cuisine to the ice entertainment system, which offers hundreds of channels of audio and visual entertainment. Customers also enjoy Emirates’ generous baggage allowance of 30kg in Economy Class, 40kg in Business and 50kg in First.

    Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of the airline, offers over 180 tonnes of cargo capacity weekly on the route. The main imports into Abuja are expected to be machinery, chemicals, transport equipment and manufactured goods, while exports include leather, vegetables and foodstuffs. The additional cargo capacity on the new service will see a further strengthening of the bilateral trade between Nigeria and the UAE.

  • Atlantic Aviation commences flights operation for Shell Nigeria

    New helicopter-services operator, Atlantic Aviation, supported by one of the world’s leading providers of high-quality transportation to offshore oil and gas producers, has begun commercial flights of Augusta Westland 139 (AW139) helicopters from Lagos.

    Atlantic Aviation, a Nigerian company owned by Jagal Group, with technical service support from CHC Helicopter, started crew-rotation flights for Shell from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport to the Deepwater Discovery drill ship. On its maiden commercial flight, Atlantic Aviation transported nine Transocean employees to the waters around the Shell Bonga concession.

    The Deepwater Discovery is a fast drilling ship that is boring some 80 holes in a relatively short amount of time in the Gulf of Guinea.

    Shaf Syed, Regional Director, Atlantic Aviation, said the first flights were significant: “These flights are only the first of what we expect would be many years of helping oil and gas operators to go further, do more and come home safely in Nigeria, one of the world’s fastest growing regions for this industry.

    “Today represents a culmination of several months of planning and hard work from many people to establish and demonstrate Atlantic Aviation. In line with the governments’ strategic agenda on investment, job creation and Nigerian content development, Atlantic Aviation is investing in delivering to Nigeria world-class standards through quality and excellence.

    Shaf said that with technical service support from CHC for training, flight and engineering standards, Atlantic Aviation will become “the leading helicopter operator in the market.

    “Customers will feel reassured by the depth of experience and expertise that we bring to this sector in Nigeria,” he said.

    The twin-engine, medium-sized AW139 helicopter is well-suited to current and future requirements of Nigerian offshore drilling, having the range and capability to operate into the deep water and frontier drilling ultra-deep water fields.

    Thelicopter that meets all the latest offshore safety requirements whilst bringing enhanced customer comfort to the offshore traveller.

  • Etihad increases Lagos flights

    Etihad Airways is upgrading its Lagos service to daily flights to meet the growing demand from passengers.

    The new daily service, according to a statement from the airline, would be introduced on March 31, this year to coincide with the start of the airline’s new summer schedule, and would significantly improve connections between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, and beyond to key destinations across the airline’s network in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, India, Malaysia and China.

    Maurice Phohleli, Etihad Airways’ General Manager, Nigeria and West Africa, said: “We have received a very positive response from the Nigerian market since launching our service six months ago. Clearly, the people of Nigeria appreciate the superior product and service of the World’s Leading Airline and we are proud to serve them.

    “Our passenger loads are strong and we are confident that this route will continue to support the growing flow of business and leisure travellers who fly from Nigeria to the United Arab Emirates, and onwards over the airline’s hub in Abu Dhabi to key commercial and tourism destinations in the GCC, North and Southeast Asia and markets in the Indian subcontinent.”

    Etihad Airways recognises the importance of the West African region and is committed to expanding its footprint across the continent, it added.

     

  • Arik resumes local flights today

    Arik resumes local flights today

    ARIK Air is due back in business today.

    Its planes have been off the sky since Thursday in the heat of a strike by workers unions in the aviation sector over alleged indebtedness to regulatory authorities.

    Arik is the nation’s biggest airline. The disruption of its operations in the last 72 hours by the Air Transport Service Senior Staff Association (ATSSSAN), the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) left thousands of domestic travellers stranded across the country and threw the sector into confusion.

    The federal government waded into the dispute yesterday with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, giving the airline the green light to resume operations from today.

    In a statement at the end of a meeting between Arik , Aviation Minister Stella Oduah and Chairmen of the Aviation Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives, Anyim said besides resolving all the issues, the two –hour meeting also agreed on a road map for smooth working operation among the warring parties.

    The meeting appealed to the two parties to cease all hostilities and apologised to all travellers for the inconveniencies the dispute may have caused them.

    He said:”We are pleased to announce that Arik Air can now resume operations.

    “All issues in contention were discussed and resolved. On behalf of the Ministry of Aviation and the Management of Arik Air, we apologise to all travellers for the inconveniencies this unfortunate misunderstanding may have caused them.”

    Shortly after the Abuja peace meeting, Arik Air declared that at no time did it allege that the aviation minister wanted five per cent equity in the carrier.

    The managing Director of the company, Mr.Chris Ndulue, told newsmen in Lagos that attributing any such allegation to Arik Air was frivolous.

    On the Abuja peace talks, he said: “In the next two weeks another meeting will be scheduled. That was why in the initial instance, we called for federal government’s intervention in the matter. We have received commitment from the agencies that we will continue to work together. It was a reconciliation meeting where all issues were resolved.”

    He described the Central Bank’s exclusion of some airlines from further bank loans until they clear outstanding ones as unhealthy for the business.

    He said the airline business is capital intensive and wondered how airlines could operate without loans.

    He explained that all the loans taken by Arik came from foreign banks and that Nigerian banks merely guaranteed such.

    The aviation minister is already considering going to court over the allegation that she demanded bribe from Arik.

    Her media assistant, Mr Joe Obi, dismissed the allegation as a fabrication, saying: “The five percent equity story is without any foundation whatsoever. It is absurd, malicious and ultimately laughable. “The Minister of Aviation could not have contemplated acquiring a stake in any airline.”