The growth of airline activity in Nigeria seems set to continue, following an announcement by the governor of Enugu State, in the south of the country.
The governments of several Nigerian regions have set up, or are in the process of setting up, their own carriers, partly as a reaction to what they believe to be an over-concentration of the resources of the country’s existing airlines in what is known as the ‘golden triangle’. Many carriers focus on routes linking the federal capital, Abuja, with the main commercial center, Lagos and Port Harcourt in the south.
This has left several of the states in the federal nation frustrated at the lack of routes serving their own major cities, a situation that they feel stifles their economic growth. The quality of Nigeria’s surface transport infrastructure is distinctly mixed and the significant distances between many cities make air travel a necessity.
Enugu State is one of the states that now operates its own airline, Enugu Air, with a fleet of two Embraer 170s and an Embraer 190 operational since July 2024; the aircraft are operated on Enugu Air’s behalf by another Nigerian carrier, XE Jet.
Enugu Air seems destined for rapid expansion. According to the state’s governor, Peter Mbah, by the time this article appears, the fleet will have doubled in size to six aircraft.
Delivering the 2026-28 budget to Enugu State’s House of Assembly in early December, he said that “Enugu Air continues to serve as an economic enabler and a strategic platform for our emergence as a regional hub.
“Next year, we will acquire an additional 14 aircraft, bringing the fleet to 20,” he continued.
Mbah gave no indication of the types of aircraft involved, or how they would be acquired but, given the current fleet, further small narrowbody jets are the likely choice, for at least part of the expansion program.
Related Content
