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…To add 10 aircraft to fleet before December
By Chinelo Obogo
United Nigeria Airlines is five years old and the company has charted a bold expansion plan that will see it land in various international destinations soon.
To achieve this, the airline said it would add additional aircraft into its fleet before the end of the second quarter of 2026, bringing the number to 21. These were revealed by the Chief Executive Officer of the airline, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo, during press conference held in Lagos in celebration of its 5th anniversary, yesterday.
Okonkwo, who gave a brief history of the airline’s trajectory from launching in February 2021 with four narrow-body aircraft on the Lagos-Enugu route, said they now operate 10 aircraft and connect 16 Nigerian states.
The airline also commenced operations to Accra, Ghana.
Okonkwo spoke on planned long-haul destinations and revealed that the airline has migrated from equivalent maintenance systems to an Approved Maintenance Organisation structure.
At the event, Okonkwo unveiled initiatives such as “Harmony,” its inflight magazine, “Unity Rewards,” its loyalty programme and the UNA Foundation focused on education, healthcare and aviation training.
He speaks on other matters:
Our journey so far
It was our plan that we should change aircraft on a two-year scale, but that plan did not come to fruition because of stumbling blocks and hurdles outside our control. But thank God, today we have grown from four aircraft to 10 operating aircraft of different sizes in our fleet. This time, not tiny ones anymore, but big medium-sized aircraft.
With our objective and the type of aircraft we have in service, we are already exceeding our customers’ expectations. When somebody pays for Lagos and feels the service is equivalent to a London flight, that’s a testament to our quality. We now operate to 16 cities in Nigeria and one regional flight to Accra, and we continue counting. We have obtained IOSA certification, which is a testament that we maintain international safety standards, because IOSA is all about safety.
It’s important to note that on the day of presentation of this certification to us, IATA themselves confirmed that they don’t have a record of any airline that was able to get IOSA certification within two years of operation. We also became a member of IATA. You cannot be a member of IATA without a certain level of operational standards and commitment to global best practices.
Alongside our growth, we have also raised a team of highly dedicated aviation professionals who embody excellence, discipline, and service. This includes ground teams, cabin crew, cockpit crew, engineers, flight dispatchers, and even undergraduates who have come for internships with us, because we have signed agreements with universities. It is important to note that from the records available to us, of the many students chosen by their universities who finished the one-year program with us and returned to their universities, 80 per cent graduated with first-class honors, and the least among them achieved only second-class upper division. A good number of them have also had the opportunity to come back to us for their National Youth Service and have even been employed.
Challenges
There’s no doubt that in the midst of all this celebration, we have faced challenges. I don’t want to bore you with the story about our ordeal during COVID: how we sent the first set of 23 pilots to South Africa, and upon arrival, within eight hours, the borders of the world were shut down. This crew was stuck in South Africa for nine months. They couldn’t come out, they couldn’t go anywhere, and they were there at their own expense. We had to put our aircraft in long-term preservation maintenance in Mexico for 12 months.
By the time these aircraft were retrieved, they had lost 50 per cent of their calendar life. After that, we faced the ups and downs of economic policies: the Naira devaluation, the scarcity of forex, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, today we are celebrating our five years of survival. Our ambition is very clear: to transform United Nigeria Airlines from a leading national carrier into a recognized continental aviation powerhouse, with strategic regional, continental, and eventually intercontinental routes. This roadmap is anchored on three strong pillars: Excellence in passenger experience, Sustainable growth and partnerships and impact beyond aviation.
Unveiling of magazine, loyalty rewards
First, we are unveiling today our in-flight magazine named Harmony. After five years of operation, we felt we needed to find a way to tell our meritorious clients and passengers that we see you, we appreciate you, and we want you to remain with us.
Second, we are also unveiling our loyalty program called Unity Rewards. Everyone can register so you can go home with your bonus points, which are very generous. Third, we are presenting our United Nigeria Airlines Foundation. Through this foundation, we aim to make a positive impact because we believe we are more than just a business. It will support education, healthcare, aviation training, and community development programs across Nigeria. Our foundation embodies our belief that success is meaningful when it uplifts society as a whole.
Other News
Route expansion
We are starting our regional and continental routes from the second quarter to the early part of the third quarter. What this means is that by the end of the second quarter of 2026, United Nigeria will fly direct to New York.
To support this, we have already acquired and leased two A330-200 aircraft, a dual-cabin aircraft capable of flying straight and direct from Lagos to New York non-stop. The first will be delivered on July 26th, and the second will arrive in October. To support our regional flights and continental flights that will take you to places like Dakar, South Africa, Dubai, and Jeddah, we have acquired six Boeing 737-800NG aircraft. These six aircraft will be delivered before the end of the second quarter, starting in the next two to three weeks when we take delivery of the first two.
So, by March 1st, we are taking delivery of the first two 737-800s. As you can see, our hands are very full, and we are working around the clock. Thank God and our team who are working tirelessly to make this happen. We are also in final discussions for additional 737-800s that will also arrive within the second and third quarters of this year. What this means is that by the end of the year, we expect to add 10 to 11 additional aircraft to our fleet beyond our current 10.
Our maintenance system
We have a robust maintenance system with engineers of Nigerian origin and from all over the world. We have migrated from an equivalent maintenance system to theApproved Maintenance Organisation (AMO), and the next level is the Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO). We are expecting that within the next three years, we are going to add that to our system. This will help to guarantee efficient maintenance and save us money, because we currently spend a lot of money flying aircraft in and out of Nigeria for even the least maintenance.
We started humbly, but today we think our growth, moving from 215 staff to almost 1,000 and hoping that before the end of the year we could exceed 2,000, is significant. We hope to be able to provide the best service to the people of Nigeria and beyond.
Above all, we give thanks to God, who in His mercy and kindness has given us the grace to become who we are today. We remain committed and loyal. I know that all these things wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment of the United Nigeria team, led by Mazi Osita Okonkwo, who brings over 15 years of experience to the role.
Today, we have a lot of hope that in the next two years, the problem of operating aircraft will be a thing of the past in Nigeria. What would matter most is how efficient, how reliable, and how competent you are. Today, all eyes are looking towards Nigeria, thanks to Boeing which we have worked very closely with. They held us in their hands and showed us the way. We can’t be talking about all this success without acknowledging their effort. We are very grateful to them. We are also grateful to the Aviation Minister for his effort. I often tell him that his passion and commitment to the aviation industry is very infectious and is a source of strength to people like us. Even when we think we are tired, we keep moving. We are very grateful to him because he believes in local operators.
Financial commitment
In all our presentations and interviews, we have always said that United Nigeria has been operating clean of any external debt or credit. But if you have to scale up, you just have to get into financial relationships. In the last five years, we have run our operation efficiently to the admiration of different financiers who have taken interest in us and strongly and hugely supported our expansion program. Among them are Zenith Bank, Bank of Industry and Afrexim Bank, to mention but a few. We thank them because without their support, we cannot be acquiring the additional aircraft that are on the way.
Forex
On the issue of forex allocation, there was a time you had no access to forex. Naira was devalued. When you needed forex, you had to go to the Central Bank of Nigeria through your bank and bid, and then you were informed that you had a forward allocation to mature in three months. Some of those allocations have not been gotten three years later. So you had no naira, you had no forex, and you still had to buy spare parts to keep operating. It was hell. We went to hell and came back alive.
The difference has been made with this administration. The issue of forex scarcity is now a thing of the past. The fact that you can now wake up today and predict the rate of naira in the next three months or six months means banks will talk to you, lenders will talk to you. One of the biggest comforts is that they know today you can access any amount of forex. They know today you can predict and plan your cash flow. We pray that it remains so and we are grateful to President Bola Tinubu.
Beyond that, in our short time here in aviation, we have met great people and great operators and one person stands out and must be mentioned. That person is my brother, my great ally, and the person I call the king of the skies, Allen Onyema, the Chairman of Air Peace. This man has done so much for the Nigerian aviation sector. He is a man who opens roads to show the world that Nigerians can do it. He ventures into areas I would not. He will say; “If I don’t do it, no Nigerian airline will be able to go there and take that route.” Because he has done that, we are able to learn from the way he has paved, learn the way he has done it, and it benefits us and the rest of Nigerian operators.
On-time performance
If you look at what airlines are doing to maintain a good on-time performance, they have to be disciplined and we have a strong track record. However, once the aircraft is ready, other factors interrupt. For instance, a board member of ours just arrived this morning. I left her at about 7:00 a.m. Had she taken a 9:00 a.m. flight, she should have been here by now. When I inquired why she was late, I learned there was a 30-minute delay leaving Lagos due to congestion. Even though we departed at 7 o’clock, upon arrival, we spent another five to 10 minutes on the runway waiting for the tarmac to be decongested. Furthermore, we received a report that the ground handling company was not available to offload luggage from the aircraft, causing another hour of delay.
Can you see the problem? For a passenger, that is simply a delay. For us, these are systemic issues. Once the aircraft, crew, and fuel are ready, we want to fly. Understanding ontime departure requires looking at its various components. While we are performing our duties, other factors like being stuck in a queue, impacts us. In New York, for example, an aircraft takes off and lands every minute; but if you have six or seven planes lined up, you can expect a 45-minute delay while burning fuel.
I believe the one thing that would improve this record is extending the operational hours of our airports. Aircraft are meant to be in the air. We are not happy having to park our planes by 7:00 p.m. simply because we operate ‘sunrise to sunset’ airports. Currently, we squeeze our schedules into 30 to 45-minute turnarounds, which is too short. We should be able to have one-hour turnarounds so that a 30-minute delay can be absorbed within that tolerance. However, if we move to one-hour turnarounds now, we would miss the sunset cutoff at many airports.
Factually and honestly, we are currently approaching 70 per cent in our on-time performance, but we are working on it. Our target is to depart all flights on time. We must appreciate the external factors that prevent this, such as airport congestion and delays at the runway threshold. On our part, our objective is to achieve 100 per cent efficiency and mitigate these external factors to maintain at least 90 per cent.
