By Aliyu DANLADI
Dana Air, on Monday, said it was making effort to boost its flight operations through strategic interlining and code sharing agreements with other domestic and foreign airlines.
The Chief Operating Officer of Dana Air, Mr Obi Mbanuzuo, disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Lagos during the inaugural flight of the airline’s B737-700 aircraft which it recently added to its fleet through partnership with Asky.
The aircraft, which is being used by Dana Air’s for Lagos-Abuja flights landed at the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2, Lagos at about 5.20p.m with no fewer than 100 passengers.
Mbanuzuo said Dana Air had in February signed a partnership agreement with Asky, a Togo based airline, to boost its fleet and also in area of aircraft maintenance.
According to him, the leasing of the B737-700 aircraft will help Dana Air staff undertake training on the aircraft type as its fleet was dominated by MD-83 aircraft.
He said the arrival of the aircraft was timely because two of the airline’s aircraft were currently undergoing C-check in France and expressed optimism that one of them would be back by September ending.
Mbanuzuo said: “The interline agreement is part of our long term plan. We will be going further with code sharing with more foreign and local airlines by the middle of 2019.
“We already have an arrangement with Medview Airline and two other airlines have also approached us.
“Dana Air’s plan is not necessarily to fly to everywhere but what we are doing is to sell tickets on these routes and our guests will be flown by our partnering airlines under the code share agreement.”
He said by November, Dana Air would be celebrating 10 years of operations in Nigeria, adding that this was not an easy feat due to the challenges facing the airline industry.
Statistics released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) shows that Dana Air flew 330,370 passengers between January and August.
The airline came second behind Air Peace, which topped the list of domestic airlines operating within the period with the airlift of 340,664 passengers within the period.
14,417 pilgrims now back in Nigeria–
