Guinea-Bissau, Mali to adopt Med-View as national carrier

Area Manager, South-West Africa,  International Air Transport Association, (IATA) Dr. Samson Fatokun (right); Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, (MD/CEO), Med-View  Airline Plc, Muneer Bankole; Head, Flight Operations, Med-View, Capt. Godfrey Ogbogwu and Executive Director, Technical, Med-View, Lookman Animashaun at the presentation of IOSA certificate in Lagos.

Firm gets IOSA certificate
Two African countries – Guinea-Bissau and Mali – have extended invitation to Med-View airlines to assume the status of their national carrier.The invitation, The Guardian learnt, is not unconnected with the airlines’ giant strides in domestic and international operations.

In a related development, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has awarded Med-View the prestigious IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate, as an endorsement of its compliance to international safety rules.

Chief Executive Officer of Med-View, Muneer Bankole, confirmed the invitation by both Mali and Guinea-Bissau, describing it as another achievement of Med-View in its 10 years of operations.

Bankole said: “Recently during the Hajj, we had invitation from the government of Mali, because we carry a lot of passengers from there and another for the Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, who was pleased to see Med-View during the operations. They wanted us to support them in their country. They wanted us to be their national airline. It shows that the sky is the limit of this airline,” he said.

Bankole said while the details were yet to be worked out, the airlines is currently working to expand its fleet-size to meet the demand among others.He informed that besides daily domestic operations in Nigeria, the airline also runs daily services to London, Accra and Jeddah, with Dubai operations to commence soon. Approval has also been received for operations in Liberia, Freetown and Dakar. In partnership with Euro-Atlantic, Lagos-Lisbon-Sao Tome operations will soon commence.

The CEO said it gave him a great pleasure to also welcome the IOSA certification, being a fundamental demand in aviation partnerships.”If any corporate entity, including airlines wants to do business with you, the first question is ‘are you IOSA certified?’ I had a meeting with the management of Etihad in Abu Dhabi. 

The management of Etihad, my team and I were discussing an inter-lining. The first question on the table was that are you IOSA certified? I said with confidence that we were in the process. Today, we have the IOSA.

“It gives an understanding that you have gone through the rigors to be among the world airlines. Today, we are competing with mega airlines like Lufthansa and that is what IOSA is all about.”

Presenting the certificate, Area Manager for IATA South-West Africa, Dr. Samson Fatokun, noted that the IOSA programme takes airlines through rigorous and stringent processes that would help improve their level of safety.

Fatokun said Med-View has successfully completed the requirements to be on the registry of IOSA, which is an important milestone in the life of any airline.

He congratulated the airline for the feat and thanked the CEO, saying it would be impossible for any airline to meet the IOSA requirements without the full commitment of the managing boss, who is the accountable officer to the programme.

It would be recalled that African Heads of State at Abuja Declaration of 1999 decided that all African airlines must be IOSA certified by 2017 for the safety of the African airspace. The IOSA certification is renewable every two years.

Fatokun added: “It is good to be on the register and it even more important to stay on the register for as long as the requirements are met. It is a continuous process. As we are moving from IOSA, we are moving to enhanced-IOSA (e-IOSA), where quality assurance must be on daily basis. 

“We congratulate you on the achievement and we urge you to take full advantage of being on the IOSA registry. It gives comfort to an airline and other organisations that an airline is following the stringent condition that IOSA requires in regards to safety. 

“We urge you to ensure you don’t come out of the registry. But go a step further to be an IATA member to be able to play in the big league to derive commercial and operational benefits,” Fatokun said.