Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
TRAVEL agents expressed satisfaction at Med-view Airlines Plc last night as they met the airline in Lagos in a bid to cement relationships ahead of the airline’s commencement of its francophone destinations of Abidjan, Conakry, Dakar route on Friday October 27, 2017.
It was also an opportunity for the airline to get feedback on the airline’s operations to London, Jeddah and other routes and how to make the airline like any other improve on its services.
Most of the trade partners were content with the airlines strategic growth and expansion but saying that there is still room for improvement.
Managing Director of the airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole thanked the trade partners whom he said have been great partners in development of Med-view.
He however stated that all the successes achieved by the airline had come with some impediments strategically laid down by authorities overseas to kill competition by the flag carrier.
“We encountered challenges of regional operations. In Ghana, they said they were not going to give us traffic right. They claimed that we already had four airlines and none from Ghana until the matter was resolved.”
“They did the same thing to us when we filed to operate to Dubai which by the Grace of God will happen on December 7, 2017. God bless our Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika who insisted that they must allow us to fly into Dubal Terminal One and not to Sharjah.”
Executive Director, Business Development and Commercial, Alhaji Ishiaq Na’Allah said his airline deemed it fit to meet with their trade partners, describing them as great partners in progress.
His words, “The major reason why we are here today is for us to rub minds together because we are opening new routes. As we all know, we operate regional flights to West African countries especially to the cities of Accra, Monrovia and Freetown. If you look at all these cities, they are English-speaking which is Anglophone. Since we are in West Africa, we talk about ECOWAS; we have the French-speaking countries as well. So, there is the need for us to connect every one.
“By Friday, October 27, we are launching a new service to Abidjan, Conakry and Dakar. The purpose of our gathering today is to interact with our trade partners that are travel agencies to partner with us. We are here to introduce this market to them and give them the opportunity to serve to passengers”.
“I am going to say they have been very wonderful partners to us. Travel agents are the first link to the customers because they help customers to plan their trips, their itinerary and serve as consultants to them. They prefer to go to the travel agencies than coming to the airlines”, he added.
He described the operating environment in Nigeria as very tough, but expressed the joy that they were able to overcome.
He attributed achievement of the airline in a short space of time to managerial competence.
