Nigeria's Ibom Air details plan for A220 induction, Uyo hub

Nigeria's Ibom Air announces int'l debut for early 4Q23

Ibom Air (QI, Uyo) has announced its international debut with daily flights between Lagos in Nigeria and Accra in Ghana starting on October 17.

Chief Commercial Officer George Uriesi confirmed to ch-aviation that the carrier's CRJ900LRs would initially be deployed on the route and, "as traffic grows beyond the CRJ, [the type] will be replaced by the A220".

Marking the opening of ticket sales on its website, the airline declared: "It’s official! Accra here we come!"

Ibom Air operates a fleet of five CRJ900LRs and has ten A220-300s on order. Uriesi told ch-aviation that deliveries are on track with the first unit expected in November 2023 and the next two arriving by October 2024, after which the remainder will be delivered in batches every quarter.

He also confirmed that the current wet leases of two A320-200s, one each from GetJet Airlines Latvia (DML, Riga) and its affiliate Airhub Airlines (RE, Malta International), will expire in April 2024, to be replaced by two of the...

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Nigeria's Ibom Air now expects first A220 in mid-4Q23

Ibom Air (QI, Uyo) now expects delivery of the first of ten in-house A220-300s from November 2023, according to Chief Commercial Officer George Uriesi.

The aircraft will be delivered in batches, with the first three expected by October 2024 and the remaining every quarter, he earlier told ch-aviation.

Speaking at a news briefing at the Aviation Africa 2023 summit in Abuja, Uriesi explained that Ibom Air had faced a capacity crunch in the first half of 2021. To address this, it explored options for larger aircraft and eventually chose the A220. As a quick go-to-market strategy, Airbus assisted Ibom Air in securing two A220-300s from EgyptAir (MS, Cairo International) on a one-year wet lease, which commenced on June 30, 2021. This gave the airline a chance to "test" the plane, he was quoted by Nigeria's Financial Watch news site.

According to Uriesi, the A220-300 was well-received in the Nigerian market and helped improve the airline's performance. This informed its decision to order ten new A220-300s from Airbus in October...