NigerianFLIGHTDECK Travel and Business Reportage 
DANA AIR has concluded its re-certification exercise conducted by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and have revealed plans to acquire more aircraft in 2019 as part of its strategic route and fleet expansion program.
The airline also assured its passengers and potentials of additional flights to ease the pain of travelers who have had to bear the high cost of tickets as a result of flight shortage across the country.
Media and Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa, during a chat with newsmen in Lagos said, ‘we have finally concluded our re-certification exercise with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
‘Re-certification in Nigeria’s aviation industry is a standard practice conducted every two years by the NCAA and during the period, an airline’s operation is totally reviewed from ground handling to quality assurance and particularly safety standards and we are glad to have scaled this rigorous process.
The Dana Air spokesman while thanking the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority for carrying out a thorough check on its operations before re-certifying the airline decried a negative report by an online platform during the course of the re-certification describing it as unnecessary.
‘We wish to commend the NCAA for doing a thorough job and for giving us a clean bill of health which on its own reassures our guests that our 10 years experience in Nigeria’s airspace is no fluke. We are however worried about some orchestrated and baseless stories that were circulated while the exercise lasted. Unfortunately the sponsors of the story displayed crass ignorance of simple regulatory exercise as a result of their mischievous intentions.’’
‘For the records, Dana Air presently has 5 aircraft out of which 2 are undergoing mandatory maintenance which in aviation is called C-checks. The safety and comfort of our guests comes first before any other consideration and we find such report really unnecessary. We advise the purveyors of such report to rather commend us, having served Nigeria for over 10 years and counting and showing massive commitment to changing the narrative about domestic airlines and Nigeria’s aviation industry as viable.’’
‘However, we really feel the pain of our guests who have had to travel by road as a result of the shortage of aircraft across the country and hike in fares and wish to reassure them of our commitment towards putting an end to it in the coming year. At the moment, discussions with our financial partners are in top gear and very soon we will acquire some aircraft to add to our fleet.’’
‘In the interim, our smart scheduling team have created additional flights to ensure that individuals, friends and families traveling this yuletide for business or leisure are not stranded or suffer unreasonable hike in fares for poor service’’
‘Our position having gone through the review is to continue to maintain our operational efficiency which we have come to be known for, and we wish to sincerely apologize to our guests for the slight disruption in flights during the course of our re-certification, he added
