New Telegraph

Asky Airlines seeks solutions to Africa’s inter-connectivity crisis

Asky Airlines has concluded plans to serve the sub-African region by spreading its wings in a bid to bridge the African air interconnectivity gap.
The Airline’s Commercial Director, Mr. Nowel Ngala, spoke to New Telegraph at the launch of the carrier’s new City Ticket Office located near the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

 

That brings to five new City Ticket Offices strategically located across four of the nation’s business capital cities. They include two offices in Lagos, and one each in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Ibadan.

Ngala lamented that about 66 per cent of African routes are still not connected, stressing that a visit to the Central Africa Republic, Bangui or Congo Kinshasa, which ordinarily should take two hours, could leave passengers going round to Europe before connection.

He noted that connectivity from the Southern parts of Africa to the Eastern part and to the Central and all parts of Africa is still lacking.

He disclosed that the existence of ASKY with a hub in Lome, Togo,q is to improve connectivity, reiterating that Asky flies every day to ensure Africans traveling on the same day move from one city to the other.

His words: “This, we cannot do alone. We continue to request the authorities to assist us in this process to give us more traffic right. The Africa Union (AU) has initiated the Single Africa Air Transport Market (SAATM) It is a very big move to assist airlines and to assist travelers to be able to connect and travel easily from one destination to the other.

“We have multiple points in some countries. In Nigeria for  example, we have two entry points; Lagos and Abuja. Our wish is to have three more entry points. Nigeria for example has seven international airports. There is no reason we should not fly as Pan African airline to Port-Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna, and so on. This will allow for connectivity and to improve on the connectivity,” said.

He added that ASKY was upgrading its services in the Nigerian market and looking to offer its customers more choices with increased frequencies and additional routes. “Hence the recent acquisition of our 12th aircraft to mark our twelfth year of successful operations since the airline was established.”

ASKY Airlines Country Manager, Simon Mobolaji said as part of the airline’s strategic re-engineering process following its success in the market since it commenced flights to Nigeria twelve years ago was to get even closer to its customers by bringing excellent customer service experience closer to them.

“We are marking the launch of the opening of these state-of-the-art offices across Nigeria today in partnership with our travel distribution and technology partners which are renowned for offering seamless travel services to Nigerians.”

The Chief Executive Officer of Wakanow, Bayo Adedeji extolled ASky for the giant strides it had taken to widen  vinterconnectivity in West Africa and most parts of Africa from its hub in Lome, explaining the works his firm intends to do with the carrier to provide more connectivity.

“We introduced a visa on arrival in Cairo. The work we are going to be doing with ASKY; we are going to look at Sao Tome for instance. We are going to open up Sao Tome in another month or two. Sao Tome and Principe have some of the best beach lines in the world. When you look at the whole of Africa; interconnectivity is the problem. People are finding it difficult to interconnect. We have to go to the government to remove the barriers of entry.”

 

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