Medview explains operations on London-Dubai routes

The management of Medview Airline has stated that the carrier took the decision to scale down its operations on the London and Dubai routes because two of its aircraft are currently being re-figured and undergoing C-checks in a facility outside the country.

The airline also pointed out that the four aircraft in its fleet are wholly owned by Medview Airline Plc, and not leased as being reported by some online media.

Displaying documents for the purchase of the airline’s aircraft, Managing Director/CEO, Medview, Alhaji Muneer Bankole in a recent interactive session with the media in Lagos, said the airline is planning to acquire a bigger aircraft to operate all its routes both local, hajj, regional and international routes as it is working closing with Boeing and a leasing company to achieve this.

Part of the document of the Bill of Sale of one Boeing 737-400 acquired from AerCap Group Services B.V and another Boeing 737-5Q8 reads

“the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the seller does hereby sell, grant, transfer, deliver and set over to Medview Airline (Nig) Limited, a Nigerian company (the buyer), all of the seller’s right, title and interest in and to the aircraft”.

It was observed that all the documentations shown to the media indicate that Medview actually owns the four aircraft in its fleet.

“Apart from this airplane, we leased two aero planes 777 and 737-800 which we have returned, the reason why we returned is the earlier aircraft I said had an issue, you cannot lease or owe an aircraft with these challenges, the decision to return them affected our London and Dubai routes, now we are working closely with Boeing and a leasing company, we are trying to procure a bigger aircraft that will support our hajj, London and Dubai routes. The B737-500 is going through a C-check, it will be delivered before the end of the first week of May”, Bankole further pointed out.

He also noted that while its domestic and regional operations were still up and running, the absence of the two aircraft had affected their schedule operations and so it had to re-strategies and consolidate on its domestic operations and restructure and re-plan its strategies to satisfy its customers.

“What we have achieved now, they say charity begins at home, rather flying everywhere and making nonsense of the whole operations, we consolidated on the domestic operations with no challenge, we are flying 99.9% capacity and we have developed a new model”.

Bankole emphasized that ”we are here to testify that the domestic, hajj operations, regional and International operations are sustainable routes for us”.

Explaining steps taken on the decision to suspend the London and Dubai routes, the MD/CEO of Medview said the agencies of government of the two countries were duly notified including the Nigeria CAA.

“What we did on London, Dubai routes was to go the CAA and the agencies of government of those countries, we said on the 15th of March, we wrote officially and we mention to CAA Nigeria that we will suspend the flights to those areas and the reason why we want to do so and we re-protect our dear passengers, which probably would have been a commendable effort by my colleagues. Some of our passengers flew on Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and other few airlines”.

“What are saying here is that we have Abeke that will take off the Dubai shot but there were delays like I have said, they completely carried out beyond what we expected that’s the MRO apart refurbishing all the toilets, they emptied the whole aircraft and when such is the case, you need to go through a new test as if you are working from a manufacturer point of view that is why we have the delay between and today, we have bought seats, premium economy which are being fixed, once we get the delivery of the aircraft we are done with that”.

Bankole revealed that Medview had to undergo rationalization of 52 staffers both professional and administrative as part of efforts to realign its operations, adding that “As at now, 60 per cent of February salary have been paid. We laid off 52 of our workers and we gave them notice of one month.”

He equally explained that the airline is not indebted to any of its international service, stressing that if an airline is owning service providers, it will not last over 6 months.

The airline operator said that in the past 12 years of Hajj operations, the airline had flew over 80,000 pilgrims in and out which rake in between 30-35% of revenue to Medview every year.

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