With their controlling shares in Nigeria Air, Ethiopian Airlines is set to manage the national carrier, which has been long in coming off the ground.
Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika hinted in Abuja that Ethiopian Airlines emerged the preferred bidder out of the 100 technical bids presented.
“After a careful, detailed and ICRC governed selection process, Ethiopian Airlines (ET) Consortium has been selected as the preferred bidder, offering an owner consortium of 3 Nigerian investors.
“The Nigerian investors are MRS, SAHCO and the Nigerian Sovereign Fund (46%), FGN owning 5% and ET 49%. The consortium has been subject to a due diligence process.
“The contract will be negotiated between consortium and FGN, leading to a full business case (FBC) which will be expected to be approved by the federal executive council (FEC). We expect this process to take 6-8 weeks.”
Meanwhile Nigeria Air has began recruitment drive ahead of the expected launching for the airline for local and international operations. It requested for pilots and first officers to send in their applications.
