Nigeria’s aviation minister, Festus Keyamo, says the federal government is moving ahead with plans to establish a national aircraft leasing company to ease acquisition challenges for domestic airlines.
Speaking in Lagos on November 7 to mark the arrival of B737-700 EI-HRN (msn 32674), which Air Peace (P4, Lagos) has dry-leased from AerCap, Keyamo said talks were at an advanced stage with "global investors" to launch the long-delayed initiative, part of Nigeria’s aviation development roadmap.
He said the company would operate through a public-private partnership model, with the government and local airlines contributing to a shared capital pool backed by sovereign guarantees to facilitate access to aircraft financing. Keyama said it would serve as an intermediary between international lessors and Nigerian airlines, with the government providing a sovereign guarantee to facilitate transactions.
"We’ll be knocking on the doors of aircraft lessors and manufacturers very soon to talk business. We are here to support the local airlines. It demonstrates the government’s commitment to supporting local carriers and promoting the growth of the aviation sector," Keyama was cited as saying by the newspaper The Nation.
He noted that aviation reforms in Nigeria are now backed by law to boost investor confidence and facilitate aircraft leasing for local airlines, Nigerian Flight Deck reported. He said that Irrevocable Deregistration and Export Request Authorisation (IDERA) had been fully implemented, providing legal certainty for lessors and financiers, adding that this marks a step in President Bola Tinubu’s aviation reform agenda and will pave the way for a Nigerian leasing company, with investors from Dubai, London, and other financial hubs expressing interest.
For years, operating dry-leased aircraft in Nigeria was hampered by contract defaults, weak enforcement, and judicial delays that discouraged global lessors and drove up leasing costs for local airlines. The full implementation of IDERA, aligning Nigeria with the Cape Town Convention, has eased these concerns by ensuring prompt deregistration and export of leased aircraft when needed, according to reports.
In May, the Nigerian federal government announced revised insurance regulations for leased aircraft that align with the Cape Town Convention to ease aircraft financing for local airlines. Nigeria also signed a legal practice direction for compliance with the Cape Town Convention in September 2024.
