Hadi Sirika. Minister of Aviation has clarified that UK Flight, Flair Jet was the aircraft impounded for violating travel ban, not Flair Aviation.
The Minister made the clarification at the daily briefing of Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 which held in Abuja on Monday.
It would be recalled that Hadi Sirika on Sunday, May 17 disclosed the federal government had impounded a UK flight for conducting commercial operations despite the travel ban in the nation.
”There is a company called Flairjet. I want to apologise that I tweeted in the afternoon (on Sunday) when the fasting was biting harder and we verified this as Flair Aviation. The correct name is Flairjet and it is UK registered company.
“They have an aircraft, Legacy 600, and the registration number of the aircraft is GPRFX. Their business address is Business Aviation Centre, Terminal Road, Birmingham International Airport, West Midlands and their code is B26QN.
“This company applied severally as to operate humanitarian flights and we did approve. It is very clear at the beginning of this exercise that we defined what those flights should be: essential flights basically – cargo, medical evacuation, medical supplies, and so on and so forth.“
“Unfortunately, this company, Flairjet (mistakenly referred to as Flair Aviation) decided to become commercial in their service, charging money and flying people in and out.
“In the first place, the whole essence of a lockdown is to ensure there is no movement of persons freely because this COVID-19 we are all spending sleepless nights for what happened because somebody travelled abroad. So, we believe this shouldn’t happen.
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“Current status, we are investigating the matter right now, it would finish very soon. The crew is British nationals. The pilots are subjected to 14 days quarantine at the moment while the investigation goes on. Whatever is there in our laws will be applied to the fullest.”