Africa: IbomAir wins Best Airline in Nigeria, Operated 6,922 flights in 18 months with 500K pax, plans 5 new routes, expects 10K flights by April

Nigeria’s startup airline, IbomAir, has won the Airline of the Year Award at the just concluded Abuja Jabamah, the Wonders of Nigeria Tourism Expo held at the nation’s capital over the weekend.

The airline emerged the best airline in the sector having performed exceptionally well in the year 2020 despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

The event was well attended by stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry, commissioners from four states, Lagos, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Cross River State, as well as the Ambassadors, from Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.

Receiving the award on behalf of Ibom Air on Saturday in Abuja, the Chief Operating Officer, Mr George Uriesi, commended the organisers of the event for choosing Ibom Air as the airline of the year adding that it is an indication that the airline needs to do more to remain consistent in its service delivery in the aviation sector.

Uriesi stated that airline has continued to maintain its remarkable records in the sector by sticking to its business core values excellence, safety, integrity, passion and innovation.

According to him, Ibom Air operated a total of 2,512 flights with 97% Schedule reliability and 98% on time performance (OTP) in 2019 and operated a total of 4,410 flights with97% Schedule reliability and 98% on time performance (OTP) in 2020.

He added that the airline had a total of 6,922 flights operated with 97% Schedule reliability (consolidated) and 98% on time performance (consolidated) in 2019 and 2020.

He said the company would create four or five new domestic destinations before the end of 2021 noting that such effort would improve connectivity within the country.

According to him, the move will bring the airline route network to nine domestic destinations and 15 routes from the current five destinations and seven routes.

“Expanding our route footprint in 2021 is critical to Ibom Air’s sustainable business success. We will also venture ’slowly’ into the region in the second half of 2021.

“We carried our 500,000th passenger on Monday March 1. We will operate our 10,000th flight in April. The business has grown very fast and thus overall capacity has become an issue.

“We will be introducing a new fleet of aircraft. We will make an order for higher capacity but highly efficient ‘brand new’ aircraft shortly, which we intend to introduce into the market sooner than later,” he said.

“The brand has quickly established itself in the psyche of the domestic flying public and our prospects are very bright as a result!

“From what we have seen so far, it is clear that we have a great opportunity to build a formidable airline”