Atlantic Posts Strong Load Factor on Nigerian Route

Samuel Mobolaji

Virgin Atlantic’s Chief Commercial Officer, Juha Jarvinen said the airline has continued to post an impressive load factor on the London -Lagos route which he said has consistently done in the past 23 years of operation in Nigeria.

Jariven who spoke with reporters at a recognition breakfast with travel agents in Lagos expressed commitment to Nigeria.

This is coming as he advised Nigerian carriers to help solve the problem of air connectivity in the West African region and Africa as a whole by strengthening regional connectivity.

He noted that what Nigeria should do is to make sure that there is strong regional connectivity to make sure that Nigeria and the other countries in the region can benefit from working closer together and making sure that the local economy becomes stronger.

He said, “South Africa and Nigeria have been part of our portfolio for a long time. We’re continuously exploring new growth opportunities as well. We just announced Accra in Ghana; so we are launching that now in May, which is another incremental proof of our belief in Africa and West Africa specifically. “we continue to evolve to explore what more we could do. Currently, we’re very happy with our Lagos performance.”

Jarvinen while speaking on the airline’s 23 years of operations to Nigeria and 40 years of existence as an airline said his carrier is very competitive on the Lagos-London route because of the fiercely competitive market, hinting that they have the right offering in the market.

‘But of course, we need to always continue evolving it and we explore what growth opportunities there could be. Besides having Lagos, Accra came in May, and then Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa. So we are currently exploring several other markets as well in Africa in the next few years. Nothing to reveal yet, but we see Africa as one of our biggest growth opportunities in the next few years”.

He further explained that his airline has no plans to operate beyond Lagos stating that currently, they are restricted from doing that despite the strategic importance of Abuja.

As an airline, he reiterated always has a long list of destinations to explore because there is always an opportunity in the market but regretted that at the moment, it is restricted.

He further stated that Virgin Atlantic had recovered from COVID-19 and had continued to develop the airline profitably and continued growing with the recent launch of the Accra route.

“We’re also launching the Riyadh route in Saudi Arabia. We’re growing in India, so we are growing in multiple markets at the same time because we are now in the expansion phase in a profitable way.”

“We have done some foundational changes, closed some of the operations in other airports, renewed our fleet, and we now have the youngest fleet in the sky, with about six years. We are the most sustainable option, we have as an organization become much more efficient, and joining Skyteam, so we’ve, I would say, COVID was very difficult for the whole industry, but it’s been also, you could say, a blessing of renewal.”