Virgin Nigeria not off to a good start

[preiffer]

I'll see if I can find a better link. For now,

Nigeria recalls flight with 92 passengers midair

LAGOS, Jan. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Virgin Nigeria, the west African county's
national carrier, recalled a flight carrying 92 passengers 23 minutes after
taking-off from the commercial capital Lagos, a company statement said on
Sunday.

"The A320-200 aircraft which had 92 passengers on board made a safe landing
(on Saturday) after an air conditioning problem was detected," the statement
said, adding that 31 of the passengers refused to travel again.

Others were, however, merged with those on board of another of the aircraft
heading to the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, where an air crash killed
106 people on board on December 10, including students.

The plane, which left Lagos for Port Harcourt, arrived safely at 12:45
hours, the statement said.

In the last three months, Nigeria witnessed three air disasters that claimed
more than 200 lives. Nigeria's Sunday Punch newspaper quoted statistics as
saying at least 932 people have been killed in plane crashes between 1969
and 2005 in the west African country.

Massive P.R exercise required in Nigeria, given the past few months. Confidence in air travel looks extremely low....... Not the enviroment that you want to try and bulid an airline in unfortunately......[:#]

[preiffer]

News link here.

I don't know if it's a bad as it could be. I think it's good that VK is trying to maintain the safety of its crew and passengers. This wasn't a crash, it was a recall of a plane because of potential safety hazards.

[preiffer]

Yup - it's a good thing. Evidently, however, the Nigerian Authorities are getting very hot on all other airlines.

They've just passed a law preventing airlines to operate aircraft that are older than 30 years old. Those over 25 years require more stringent maintenance checks from now on, too.


One of the national carriers got rather embarassed by the new rule - a load of their aircraft (hidden under a paint job masking the 1960's birth-date) were immediately grounded [:0]