DOUBTS about Nigeria Air continue to mount as its booking website has been redirecting customers to another website, amid other controversies that have trailed the purported national carrier.
Attempts to book a Nigeria Air flight from Lagos to Abuja on the website www.flynigeraiair.world, which the airline had launched, showed that customers were being redirected to www.aviasales.com, a booking website.
This is happening days after the unveiled Nigeria Air aircraft left Nigeria and has been operating as Ethiopia Air.
READ ALSO:
Reps say Nigeria Air launch a fraud, aviation unionist wants Sirika probed
Nigeria risks US, Europe airspace ban over Nigeria Air – AON
Gone with the wind: FG suspends Nigeria Air
Between Nigeria Airways and Nigeria Air
A check with the flight tracker showed that the aircraft ET-APL had, in the last seven days, shuttled the Djibouti-Adisa Ababa route on June 4, June 6, and June 7.
More disclosures about Nigeria Air emerged on Tuesday, June 6, after its interim managing director, Dapo Olumide, admitted that the aircraft branded Nigeria Air unveiled on May 26, was a chartered flight from Ethiopian Airlines.
Olumide confirmed that the aircraft returned to Ethiopian Airlines after the unveiling.
Members of the House of Representatives committee on Aviation had, on Tuesday, June 6, expressed their misgivings on the unveiling of the airline.
The ICIR had reported that the committee, chaired by Nnolim Nnaji, had described the aircraft’s unveiling as “a fraud.”
After evaluating the issues, the committee directed that the Federal Ministry of Aviation and its partners in the Nigeria Air project should immediately suspend flight operations and every other action concerning Nigeria Air.
It urged President Bola Tinubu to “as a matter of urgency constitute a high-level presidential committee to undertake a holistic review of the processes of the whole Nigeria Air project, and advise the government on the way forward.”
It also urged the committee to be set up to “ensure that all individuals, or groups, or organisations involved in the controversial shenanigan named Nigeria Air take-off are brought to book, prosecuted and sanctioned.”
The former minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had gone ahead to flag off the operations of Nigeria Air despite a standing court injunction against such a move, and without any provision for sustaining the functions of the airline.
“A careful review of the process indicates the exercise to be highly opaque, shrouded in secrecy, shoddy, and capable of ridiculing and tarnishing the image of Nigeria before the international community,” the House committee added.