NIGERIAN Aviation Minister Stella Oduah has won moral support for her idea of re-establishing a state-financed national flag air carrier from Air Gold Aviation managing director Ifeanyi Okocha, reported Nigeria's This Day.

But other than This Day's newspaper article, little appears on the web about Air Gold Aviation or Mr Okacha, other than sparse Facebook and Linkedin entries, the latter listing him as a "civil engineer at Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria".

Mr Okocha urged the federal government to establish a national carrier, noting that this would provide employment to 19,500 Nigerians, adding that a NGN985 billion (US$6.27 billion) loan would be enough to start the airline.

Mr Okocha said that he and his team of aviation professionals had carried out a feasibility study which would soon be submitted to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

"If Nigeria Airways Limited was managed professionally, the national carrier would still be operating today. But it was run on a civil service structure," he said.

Mr Okocha claimed that as at the time NAL was liquidated, the national carrier had four large maintenance departments, which should have been converted to maintenance, overhaul and repair facilities.

"Instead, NAL was closed down, thereby denying the government the opportunity of generating revenue. If NAL had been in existence, other domestic and international airlines operating in Nigeria would have been carrying out their maintenance checks from NAL hangars, thereby generating revenue," he said.

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