Travels

Fault members’ exclusion from committee for national carrier Set to stop VAT remittance to FG Airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) rose from a meeting with a consensus among them that national carrier which the Federal Government may have concluded plans to set up by December this year was not only unnecessary but ‘counterproductive. This recent criticism of national airline is coming at a time majority of Nigerians are clamouring…

Maps of Earth’s gravitational field will indicate movement of liquid water, ice and land masses  The twin GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) satellites, developed and built by Airbus, were successfully launched into Space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, USA, using a Falcon 9 launcher.GRACE-FO is a joint project between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam, near Berlin.  Accurate measurements of the inter-satellite range between the two…

British Airways is offering customers even more ways to spend their Avios, by giving them the opportunity to use Avios to select their seats. The carrier’s customers can now use Avios to cover all, or part, of the cost to select their seat. The move gives members of the British Airways Executive Club even more ways to spend Avios. Gold, Silver and Bronze members will still be able to select seats for free; and free…

Nigerian startup, Green Africa Airways has appointed Caribbean Airlines VP-operations Jag Singh as COO and former JetBlue Airways VP-flight operations Bart Roberts as safety review board chairman. Lagos-based Green Africa Airways has secured its air transport license and is working toward its air operator’s certificate. The airline initially plans to operate flights within Nigeria using leased mid-sized jets. Announcing the appointments, Green Africa described Singh as “a senior industry leader with over 35 years of experience.”…

Five months after President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Board chairmen and members; those in aviation are yet to be inaugurated leaving supervision of the agencies solely to the CEOs of the agencies.  Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha had directed all the ministers to inaugurate boards of parastatals and agencies in their ministries.  Five months after the presidential directives, Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika has refused to inaugurate the boards…

2015 and 2016 were challenging years for travel sector. Fundamentally, they reflected the strength of the Nigerian market; that even with the difficulties encountered, the travel industry remains strong, writes WOLE SHADARE IATA’s report The International Air Transport Association (IATA) last week in its passenger traffic figure released, said the region’s two largest economies- Nigeria and South Africa- have continued to experience increased traffic growth. The clearing house for over 280 global airlines attributed the situation to…

 …as concerns mount over N5.87bn World Bank loan To ensure safety and security of major airports in Nigeria, the government is shopping for over N35 billion to fence the aerodromes in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) laid down rules, Woleshadarenews has learnt. This is notwithstanding the huge budgetary outlay by the Federal Government in the procurement of technology to tackle incursions at major airports. The Cost could also go higher, according to experts who…

Muhammad Al Bakri is International Air Transport Association (IATA) Regional Vice President, Africa & the Middle East. In this interview, he speaks about the role of technology in facilitating seamless air travel and significant role it is going to play in 2018. Excerpts The pace of technological change is accelerating. Over the last few years the travel experience has become more efficient thanks to new technologies such as mobile internet, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, big-data, internet…

 Airbus Helicopters’ Skyways unmanned air vehicle has successfully completed its first flight demonstration at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The drone took off from its dedicated maintenance centre and landed on the roof of a specially designed parcel station where a parcel was automatically loaded via a robotic arm. Once successfully loaded with the parcel, the Skyways drone took off again and returned to land, demonstrating its automatic unloading capability. This inaugural flight demonstration…