• How Oceanic capital took loan using Aero’s name and how it gradually crumbled Aero contractor
These are not the best of times for Nigeria’s oldest airline, Aero Contractor, as the airline gradually crumbles. Recent happenings in the management of the airline have triggered concerned transport bodies in the industry to cry for the company to be rescued from its present predicament.
Reports gathered revealed that the transport Unions; NUATE and ATSSSAN who felt concerned for Aero Contractor, an airline owned by a Nigerian, have called on the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to rescue the Aero Contractor Airline, regarded as the oldest indigenous airline in Nigeria, which is at the brink of bankruptcy and loss of its identity in the country’s aviation business.
It was gathered that the plea was contained in a letter titled; “Aero Contractors Company Nigeria must not die – save our souls from the orchestrated plot to plunder/kill Aero Contractors,” directed to the MD of AMCON by the two unions.
In the letter, the concerned unions pleaded with the AMCON Managing Director to use his good office to intervene or investigate the matter, as they might be compelled to draw the attention of the Federal Government and other international partners on the avalanche of questionable deals being daily perpetrated by the Board and their collaborators in Aero management.
The union accused Oceanic Capital of using Aero’s name to take a loan from the defunct Oceanic Bank and transferred same to Oceanic Capital, which went on to purchase some planes and leased them back to Aero through Oceanic Leasing Company.
“This can be confirmed on the tag printed on the plane clearly stating Oceanic Capital as the owner of the plane. It was this loan that almost killed Aero not CHC as being speculated.”
“This loan was allegedly used to purchase seven B737-500from Arizona at an average cost of $12million each, but from the website of the firm from where the aircraft were purchased, they were going for about $4 million each.
“From records, a total of seven airplanes were purchased, but only six were received by Aero from Oceanic Capital on lease. Aero was paying a lease rate to Oceanic Capital monthly which almost wrecked the company and made CHC to withdraw as technical partner and took away all their equipment.”
The group further alleged that when Oceanic Bank was taken over by ECOBANK, all document relating to the deal were destroyed and the debt transferred to Aero
Aero is Nigeria’s oldest airline set up in 1959, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Schreiner Airways B.V of the Netherlands.
It can be recalled that in the later days of December 2015, passengers who boarded the Aero Airline used ladder to get out of the plane at the TafawaBalewa Airport, Bauchi, an event that attractedglobal criticism to Nigeria’s aviation system
