Mesfin Tasew Bekele, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, has announced that the airline no longer intends to set up a national carrier for Nigeria. In an interview with Bloomberg Africa, Bekele revealed that the plans to collaborate with institutional investors and the Nigerian government to establish a carrier have been abandoned.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“We don’t have any intention to partner with any of the Nigerian airlines today because it has been politicized,” Bekele stated. He explained that Ethiopian Airlines initially aimed to support Nigeria by leveraging its expertise to create a reliable and profitable airline. However, these efforts were not well received by Nigerian airlines, leading to the decision to withdraw from the partnership.
This announcement comes shortly after a Federal High Court in Lagos declared the sale of Nigeria Air Ltd to Ethiopian Airlines null and void. Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa ruled against the establishment of the national carrier, granting reliefs sought by plaintiffs, including the Airline Operators of Nigeria and several other local airlines. The court’s decision cited issues with the bidding and selection processes, although it denied a claim for ₦2 billion in damages by the plaintiffs.
The legal battle involved multiple parties, including Nigeria Air Limited, Ethiopian Airlines, and former Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, as defendants.
