By Dickson Omobola
On Thursday, February 12, 2025, domestic and regional carrier, United Nigeria Airline, celebrated five years of connecting Nigerians across the country amid fanfare at the Sheraton Hotel in Lagos.
The occasion featured the launch of an in-flight magazine, Harmony, and the United Airlines Foundation, which will support education, healthcare, aviation training and commerce development across Nigeria.
During the event, Chairman of United Nigeria Airline, Obiora Okonkwo, recounted the challenges the airline faced before starting operations and discussed its projections for the foreseeable future. Excerpts:
The beginning
We are here to talk about a journey that started exactly five years ago. For us, today is a special day, a day a dream was fulfilled. The first flight from the Murtala Muhammed Airport to Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu was not just a flight; it was a memorable one. After so many years of struggle, and after the COVID shutdown, there were restrictions, people were not even allowed to fly, talk more of starting an airline. Everybody on that flight wore a nose mask. It was a signal that it was not even the best time to fly. Yet, it was under those circumstances that we flew.
It was a journey that started with four aircraft, the ERJ145. We chose that aircraft deliberately, after extensive market research, to enable us to develop our routes and, not being aviators, to learn the ropes. It was our plan to change and scale up in two years, but that plan did not come to fruition due to factors outside our control. Today, from four aircraft, we have 10 operating aircraft. From a single route to Enugu, we are currently uniting passengers across 16 cities in Nigeria and one regional route to Ghana.
We are celebrating today, but we have obviously faced challenges. We survived the COVID-19 shutdown. Consider how we sent the first set of 23 pilots to South Africa, only for the world’s borders to shut down eight hours after their arrival. The crew stayed in South Africa for nine months, they could not come out, they could not go in, and they were there at our own expense.
We also placed our aircraft under long-term preservation and maintenance in Mexico for 12 months. By the time the aircraft arrived, they had lost 50 per cent of their calendar life. After that, we faced the ups and downs of economic policies, the Naira devaluation, scarcity of foreign exchange, among others.
Nevertheless, today we are celebrating five years of survival under the theme: From Vision to Velocity: Five Years of United Growth, Starting the Next Frontiers. Five years have come and gone, and we have another five years ahead of us.
Roadmap
Our roadmap will unfold on three strong pillars. Number one: excellence in passenger experience. Number two: sustainable growth and partnerships. Number three: a path beyond aviation. We are starting our regional and continental routes from the second quarter to the early part of February. This means 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 two A330-200 aircraft. These are 12-cabin aircraft capable of flying nonstop from Lagos to New York.
The first will be delivered on July 26, while the second will arrive in October. To support our regional and continental flights to destinations such as Dakar, South Africa, Dubai and Jeddah, we have also acquired six 737-800NG aircraft.
All six aircraft will be delivered before the end of the second quarter, starting in the next two to three weeks with the delivery of the first two. By March 1, we expect to have taken delivery of the first two 737-800 aircraft.
We are also in final discussions for additional 737-800 aircraft to be delivered in the second and third quarters of this year. By the end of the year, we expect to add no fewer than 10 to 11 additional aircraft to our fleet.
Stock exchange
Within the next three to five years, we will be on the stock exchange. We must be very prepared for that, and it is part of our plan. The cost of funds is very critical. As you know, bank loans attract interest rates of about 30–35 per cent, which is huge. If nothing is done about this, it will be very difficult for operators to scale up operations.
We have requested government to create a single-digit interest window for airlines. Let me explain the mathematics. Aircraft are high-cost equipment. To secure a loan large enough to make an impact, we are talking about billions.
For instance, if an airline takes a N100 billion loan at 30 per cent interest, without paying the principal, it is already paying N30 billion in interest annually. That translates to about $2 million every month. Every month, you pay the bank $2 million, excluding the principal. That is huge.
When we talk about the cost of capital as a factor influencing ticket prices, many people overlook this reality. We are putting our house in order in preparation for listing on the stock market. We are inviting external investors, and they must be comfortable coming on board. It involves a lot of work and processes, and we are complying with all requirements, including corporate governance, proper bookkeeping and regulatory rules.
Transit facility
It is a big concern for us as operators that we do not have a transit facility. It makes it very difficult to create a hub in Nigeria. What this simply means is that if those things are not in place, it will be very difficult for us to achieve our aim of flying to longer routes, continental and intercontinental.
So, we are very hopeful that the engagement we are having with the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, will yield results. The minister is very particular about this. We must be able to bring people from other regions into Nigeria in a way that is not so basic.
That is, you should not need to check out and check in. Checking out your cargo, checking your visa situation, and all of that should not be necessary. You should also be able to obtain a transit visa if you do not intend to enter the country. We consider this very critical infrastructure in our airports.
We are engaging, and we are getting positive results. As for the construction going on at the international airport, I do not know the details of what it contains, but I know that the minister is very particular about it.
As a matter of fact, we have a new product at United Nigeria. With this new product, and given that we are flying to many more cities, with more to come, we will be able to take a student living in Ekiti who is travelling to Port Harcourt, Kano or Enugu. We do not want the student’s journey to terminate in Lagos or Abuja, which are just local hubs.
We want to be able to take people beyond Lagos and Abuja, that is, arrive in Lagos or Abuja and then move, through a transit arrangement, to Kano, Port Harcourt or Enugu. That discussion is ongoing, and we are hopeful that within the shortest possible time, we will have it in place. We definitely have a plan.
The post UNA @ FIVE: How we survived COVID, scaled up and plans ahead — Okonkwo appeared first on Vanguard News.
