Monday, January 24, 2005
No sleep 'til Lagos
In Patrick Smith's Salon column, news that Continental Airlines will offer direct flights from Newark to Nigeria starting in June -- the first U.S. passenger airline service to any African destination since Delta yanked its jets out of Egypt in late 2001.
No American entity has flown to any sub-Saharan point since Pan Am's routes (to Monrovia, Dakar, Nairobi and elsewhere) were abandoned prior to that airline's collapse in 1991. Continental also will become the only U.S. airline operating to six continents, a distinction it will share with numerous foreign counterparts.LinkNew York-Lagos, which would not have garnered my wager as a likely candidate for such a premiere, is considered a highly lucrative market. "Our Lagos service will be highly attractive to Nigerian and American transatlantic travelers," said Continental CEO Larry Kellner in a statement. "Particularly executives in energy-related industries." The route was previously covered by the long-embattled Nigeria Airways, which finally closed its doors in 2003.
Nigeria, by the way, was ranked the world's third most corrupt nation by a watchdog organization called Transparency International. The group says 40 percent of the country's petroleum income is stolen or squandered by government corruption and mismanagement. Allegedly -- though I can't confirm this -- one of the reasons British Airways ceased its London-Lagos flights was because its airplanes were routinely stripped of equipment, including galley supplies, furnishings and even cockpit electronics, during layovers. Rumors say armed guards will accompany crew and passengers on Continental's flights from Newark.
Update: BoingBoing reader Robbie Honerkamp says,
A slight correction on your post. Ritetime Aviation, an Atlanta travel agency, had direct scheduled flights between Atlanta, New York and Lagos in 2003 and 2004 using aircraft operated by World Airways. Internal problems at Ritetime caused them to miss payments to World Airways, who promptly ceased flying the route. Ritetime's website is still online, but they're now out of business. World Airways' website is here.The Salon article's mention of British Airways no longer flying to Lagos is also not true- a quick check of British Airways' web page shows regular BA flights from Heathrow (though it looks like they've stopped flying from Gatwick to Lagos). BA makes money hand over fist with the London-Lagos route and it'd take a lot for them to stop flying the route. As for "layovers" in Lagos, the airplanes are on the ground in LOS for only three or four hours before they're off on the night flight to London. I haven't heard of any airplanes being looted at the international airport. Over the past few years I've been extremely impressed with what the Nigerian aviation ministry has done to clean up the airport. I humbly suggest the author of the Salon article is smoking crack.
FYI, Richard Branson of Virgin is launching a new airline just for Nigeria. It's called "Virgin Nigeria" and will fly the Lagos-London route as well as routes from Lagos to other Nigerian and African destinations. Link to BBC News article.
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