Aero Contractors Limited has disclosed its intention to add more aircraft to its fleet before the end of the year now that it is back in full operations.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Capt. Ado Sanusi, disclosed this in Lagos yesterday when Aero Contractors celebrated its 60th anniversary of flight operations in Nigeria.
The new Aero: Sanusi stated that the airline is coming out of difficult times and is currently re-inventing itself through its aircraft management organisation, approved training organisation, and charter services.
The airline recently experienced some rough patches. Recall that Nairametrics earlier reported in 2016 that the airline was shortlisted among the list of failed businesses in the country. However, things changed when the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), took over its management, thereby attracting investors to the airline.
“The airline service has since December, 2016 returned to full operations and grown its fixed wing operational aircraft from one to four. It is our expectation to grow our fixed wing aircraft to six by the close of this year.
“The present count of four aircraft improved our domestic flight operations to 32 daily. From one helicopter in 2017 we now have five operational helicopters with capacity to further grow this number to 10 helicopters by close of the year so as to deepen our services.”
“Without AMCON, Aero will not be here today as an airline that has contributed a lot to the growth of aviation and the oil and gas sectors. Only Nigeria Airways surpasses Aero’s human capital development in the industry.”
More details on the additional aircraft: Back in March, Aero Contractors Limited had explained that it re-opened its old routes and added new ones such as Kano, Lagos-Yola, Yola-Abuja, and Yola-Lagos. The introduction of new routes implies that they would have to acquire more aircraft to operate those routes.