Barely two years after it began scheduled domestic flight operations, Cross River State-owned airline, Cally Air, may have flown into thunder storm over a concession agreement.
Documents made available to African Business Travel News (ABTNEWS) showed that the airline, which is operated by Aero Contractors on behalf of State government based on a Memorandum of Understanding ( (MOU) with the administration of the outgoing governor of Cross River State, Mr. Ben Ayade and the incoming governor, Prince Bassey Ottu on one hand and Aero Contractors on the other.
Sources close to the parties revealed that problem arose when the outgoing governor requested that the airline’s Boeing 737-300 with the registration number: 5N-BYQ be brought to Calabar for commissioning and eventual “concessioning” exercise a request which the in-coming governor considered as suspicious.
Besides, the outgoing governor had earlier in the year listed Cally Air as some of the state’s assets to be concessioned to private firms.
This concession plan has however not gone down well with some of the indigenes of the state; a development which led one Mr. Mba Ukwenu, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (S.A.N) to challenge the decision of the State Government in law court.
Also Aero Contractors Airline which entered into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State Government on April 30, 2021 for operations and maintenance of the aircraft until recently, is not being considered in the concession arrangement, despite about N900 million debt it is owed by the State on the MoU. Instead the state government is having a high level discussion with IRS Airline Limited.
This, a source close to the State Government, who doesn’t want its identity disclosed, attributed to why Aero Contractors is hesitant at releasing the aircraft.
More on this as our correspondent gathers more facts on the development.
