Yemisi Izuora
Medview Airline on Sunday operated its flight to London Gatwick airport, showing that it was not banned by EU authorities as recently reported.
The flight was operated by a Boeing B747 aircraft with registration number TF-AFV.
The Chief Operation Officer of the airline, Lookman Animasheun explained that when the airline saw the report of the blacklist of some airlines it issued s statement to explain the true situation of things to Nigerians.
Animasheun explained that Medview leased aircraft from EU airline which has met the safety standard of the European Air Safety Agency (EASA), which enabled it to continue to operate its flights to London uninhibited.
“When we saw the publication, we issued a press release telling Nigerians exactly the true position which you have also found out today. Even the day the publication came out, the flight to London on Wednesday came back on Thursday. We are not perturbed by all those things but we are concerned about the passengers who, one way or the other would not know the correct situation, that is why we came up with that press release to inform them that the Lagos-London-Gatwick operation is normal and that is exactly what we have done,” the airline’s Chief Operating Officer said.
He also explained that the airline had been operating the Boeing B747 since late last year and that it has met all standard of safety as recommended by EASA.
“We have been using this aircraft since December when we have a very large volume of passengers on that route, recording over 450 passengers throughout December, January, February and March but now we are at a low season which is going to end by June, next month and we are going to take delivery of another Boeing B777 from Euro Atlantic and we would two of them (Boeing B747 and Boeing B777), depending on the level of passengers, we would now know which aircraft to use,” Animasheun said.
He urged the federal government to ensure that Nigerian airlines operated those international routes where a lot of Nigerians travel in order to check high fares, which foreign airlines introduce when there is no local carrier operating such routes.
“As at today, we have been able to stabilize the fare for the London route to a large extent. In the past, as at this month, the ticket would have been going for 1000 to 1,200 Pounds for Economy Class but none of the foreign airlines can sell a ticket more than 500 Pounds as we speak. If they do they would not have passengers.
I urge Nigerians to actually believe in their own and patronise what is theirs. Medview can never compromise on safety,” he added.
Animasheun also called on government to understand the aero politics of international airlines and the big nations nations that tend to dominate airlines from small nations in order to protect its own carriers.
“The only advice Medview will want to give to government is to sit down and have a sort of working plan to actually help the local carrier since as at today, we don’t have a national carrier but any other airline that goes out this country is a flag carrier to Nigeria. So they should take it seriously and see whatever problem any of them has as their problem,” Animasheun said.