About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Virgin Nigeria Airways

Encyclopedia : V : VI : VIR : Virgin Nigeria Airways

Virgin Nigeria Airways is an airline based in Lagos, Nigeria and operates scheduled international, regional and domestic passenger services. Their hub is Murtala Mohammed International Airport (LOS) in Lagos. This is a replacement for defunct Nigeria Airways.

Contents

History

On 28 September 2004 the Nigerian government and Virgin Atlantic Airways signed an agreement to establish a new airline for Nigeria, to be called Virgin Nigeria Airways. Nigerian institutional investors own 51% of the company and Virgin Atlantic Airways owns 49%. The airline's inaugural flight was on 28 June 2005 from Lagos to London Heathrow using an Airbus A340-300 aircraft.

Services

Virgin Nigeria Airways currently operates from the international terminal of Lagos Murtala Muhammad Airport to the following destinations: within Nigeria to Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt, regionally to Accra, Dakar and Douala, and long-haul flights to Dubai, Johannesburg and London (Gatwick). More domestic and international destinations are planned in line with its plans to develop its Lagos hub.

US flights

There are plans to launch scheduled flights from its Lagos hub to Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey in the New York City metropolitan area. This would replace the original services of the defunct and liquidated Nigeria Airways. However, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has denied the airline a permit for a direct Nigeria-U.S. service. The basis for this denial is a dispute over the degree of British ownership in Virgin Nigeria. The U.S. accuses the United Kingdom, and Virgin Atlantic Airways which holds a 49% stake in Virgin Nigeria, of blocking efforts to liberalize the North Atlantic market to American carriers and has retaliated by denying this permit. In turn, the government of Nigeria has denied Continental Airlines a permit for direct U.S.-Nigeria flights. Negotiations are pending to resolve this situation and reopen this lucrative route.

On 22 December 2005 Virgin Nigeria made a new filing to the United States Department of Transportation for a foreign carrier permit, which points out that the degree of Virgin Atlantic ownership in Virgin Nigeria (49%) is not a barrier to granting such a permit. [DoT Filing] [DoT Exemption Filing]

Virgin Nigeria plans to add Newark as its first American destination, followed by Washington DC, (to cater for political and NGO traffic), and Houston (catering for oil industry-related traffic).

In the hopes of expediting the filing, on June 13, 2006 the Nigerian government gave North American Airlines, a charter company specializing in direct flights to Africa from the US, permission to start direct scheduled flights from New York's JFK Airport to Lagos starting in late July. [link]

Further expansion

Other regional routes will eventually be launched to Abidjan, Bamako, Brazzaville, Freetown, Libreville, Luanda and Monrovia.

The airline is also exploring flights to Bangkok, Beirut, Frankfurt, Jeddah and Paris.

SOURCE:

Fleet

-->
The Virgin Nigeria Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Other aircraft on order: 2 A340-300 (next delivery expected during June 2006), 4 737-300s (to be leased from GECAS, gradual deliveries with last aircraft expected by end of 2006)


By the end of 2006, Virgin Nigeria plans to have 11 aircraft. By the end of the decade, the airline plans to have a fleet of 40 aircraft.

Destinations

Africa

Asia

Europe

External links


Lists of Aircraft | Aircraft manufacturers | Aircraft engines | Aircraft engine manufacturers

| Airlines | Air forces | Aircraft weapons | Missiles | Timeline of aviation

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: