Abasifreke Effiong – Uyo
The management of Ibom Air, an Akwa Ibom state owned airline says it has taken delivery of one more aircraft, making it four aircraft on her fleet.
Ibom Air announced the arrival of the new aircraft in a release on its official Facebook page on Wednesday.
The company says the new aircraft, a
Bombardier CRJ 900 aircraft arrived Lagos from Calgary, Canada at 10:48 pm local time, on Tuesday evening, May 5, 2020.
Earlier this year, Chairman of Ibom Airline Company Limited, Retired Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga, said the company was expecting two more aircraft to add to three it already have.
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One of the two aircraft which the company’s chairman said were expected to add to fleet arrived Lagos on Tuesday.
“We are very pleased to receive the first of our two recently purchased Bombardier CRJ 900 aircraft, in line with our fleet expansion strategy. With this addition, our fleet grows to four aircraft.”
“This particular aircraft, with registration number 5N-BXP, made its maiden commercial flight in May 2014 (just 6 years ago). Thus, Ibom Air continues to operate the lowest average fleet age amongst Nigeria’s airlines. This fleet strategy is in line with our vision to be a world-class African regional airline”, Ibom Air announced in a release.
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The company said her modern fleet of Bombardier CRJ 900 aircraft comes fitted with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters which helps to remove contaminated air from the cabin.
“HEPA filters are high – intensity filters that do not just filter dust, but effectively capture greater than 99% of the airborne microbes in the filtered air, including microscopic particles such as bacteria and viruses. Cabin air in HEPA equipped aircraft generally pass through the filters 20-30 times per hour, removing contaminants and greatly enhancing the quality of air in the cabin.”
The airline company thanked the Minister of Aviation, regulators in the Aviation sector and the Akwa Ibom state government for giving support to the company to be able to bring in the new aircraft despite the nationwide lockdown.
Ibom Air has made successes which have surpassed records in number of passengers airlifted as well as on -time departure and arrival of flights less than a year since it began operations.
