24 August 09

VIRGIN NIGERIA, ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES SEALS DEAL ON TECHNICAL SERVICE AGREEMENT

Lagos Nigeria, 24th August 2009: Virgin Nigeria Airways and Ethiopian Airlines have emerged as the first two African Airlines to sign a Technical Service Agreement (TSA), covering Training, Maintenance and Resource Pooling, signaling a major boost in technical cooperation among African Airlines

Both Girma Wake and Captain Dapo Olumide leading top managements of both Airlines paid glowing tribute to the possibility of collaboration among African business and commercial interests, describing the TSA as the first effective action among African Airlines representing West and East Africa bloc.

Ethiopian Airlines with 34 wide body Aircraft and an order for another 36 made up of B787 Dreamliner and B777LR, last week posted a profit of $117 million (one hundred and seventeen million) in the face of Global financial losses of major American, European and Asian Airlines.

The new Technical Service Agreement with Ethiopian Airline effectively ends the technical partnership between Virgin Nigeria and Virgin Atlantic Airlines.

Captain Olumide moments after the ceremony at Ethiopian Airlines headquarters described the new deal as “A Paradigm shift that changes the way Airlines function; It shows an audacity for Nigerian Airline to partner another African Airline, which by the way is more profitable than all European Airlines combined; this is completely unheard of in Africa”

According to him, “the maintenance of all our B737 Aircraft will be done with Ethiopian Airlines, but there are a host of other opportunities, which includes training of our pilots, cabin crew, Engineers; They have a vast and extensive network in training, This is one African Airline that is actually bigger than most European companies”.

The Virgin Nigeria boss explained that the new TSA is part of a broad strategy that would ultimately signal the Airline’s first step towards rebranding in name and work culture.

“All along, Airlines in Africa do their training in Europe or America; we are going to do our training here, because Africa has come of age. We have seen what is going on in South African Airways, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines and we believe this is the future and we are moving on in that direction, this is in addition to the fact that it will reduce our costs significantly as well as make us more efficient, I am proud, this is a significant milestone” he explained.

Managing Director of Ethiopian Airlines, Mr. Girma Wake hailed the new partnership as one that moved unusually fast adding that the new technical service agreement would afford Ethiopian Airlines in assisting Virgin Nigeria to “maintain the good standard that they already have”.

“This will be an imperial benefit to Africa” he said while explaining the fact that the ground work which lead to the signing of the agreement was less that one month.

According to Mr Wake, ‘We know Virgin Nigeria, we also know the potentials of Nigeria and we believe Virgin Nigeria will serve the Nigerian public very well; I also think that as nations, we can also put in something to ensure that the work in Nigeria succeeds. Technical Cooperation is a two way thing, and I believe that we will achieve synergy from this”.