Medview Airlines To Begin Flights To London Next Quarter

Medview Airlines has said it would commence flight operations on the Lagos-London route in November this year.

The Managing Director of the airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole, who disclosed the development to aviation correspondents in Lagos on Tuesday, said the British authorities have approved the plan.

Bankole said that his airline would make use of its newly acquired Boeing 767-300 aircraft, leased recently to service the London route.

The managing director said that the aircraft would be operating twice a week to London from Lagos and Abuja.

He said the total seat capacity of the aircraft is 221, with 30 business class seats to meet yearnings of customers.

“Presently, we only have British Airways and Virgin Nigeria coming into Nigeria. We will make our air tickets to London cheaper without compromising the safety of our passengers who are flying the route.

“Also, among our destination countries are Jedda and Dubai. We have got approval to service the Lisbon Airport. It was given to us by the government of Portugal, ” he said.

The Federal Government had earlier designated the airline to begin operations into 10 new international routes.

The government’s approval was contained in a letter addressed to the airline, dated April 23, 2015 by the Federal Ministry of Aviation.

The routes approved for the airline are Lagos-London, Lagos-Lisbon; Lagos-Douala and Lagos-Kinshasa.

Others are Lagos-Abidjan; Lagos-Bamako; Lagos-Monrovia; Lagos-Conakry and Lagos-Freetown.

Bankole, however, decried the way foreign airlines are accessing Nigeria's point of entry.

“We have opened the point of entries into our airports too wide for foreign airlines and that is why the local airlines are dying slowly.

“We make them to feel they are everything in our country but Nigerian airlines find it difficult to access their countries easily.

“I mentioned it earlier that I was in Saudi-Arabia while I had to pay extra charges to the airline before I got to my destination, no Nigerian airline gets paid here for that.

“Rather, foreign airlines are telling the government to abolish some commercial charges they are paying to aviation agencies.

“However, we believe that with the new government on ground, it will do something reasonable to resuscitate our industry to the next level,” Bankole said.