The government of the state of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria has proposed establishing an airline and building an airport at Lekki. Multiple Nigerian outlets are reporting on comments made by State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu at a public forum last week. He said planning and work on the financing model had been underway for several months.
"Over the last five months, the Deputy Governor and I have been working to put a concise plan together for the establishment of an airline, but we did not make the plan open because of the need to get adequate knowledge about the operational procedures of airlines," the governor told the forum. “The business plan is viable, and there is no issue about financing. The conversation has gone to an advanced stage but we need to get the proper information on operations before we go ahead to implement the plan."
He said the next steps were to secure federal government approval and set up "operational contingencies." According to ch-aviation PRO airports data, Lagos, the primary airport in the state of the same name, is Nigeria's second busiest. A total of 35 airlines use the airport, connecting it to 56 destinations in 35 countries.
Separately, plans to develop the Lekki-Epe International Airport are now a decade old, but the proposal has faced opposition from local landowners. The planned development of the 3,500-hectare airport in the east of the state will rely on a public-private partnership model. In 2022, stage one of the project had an estimated price tag of USD900 million. Earlier this month, an optimistic Lagos government official suggested the airport could open by the end of 2025 and be capable of handling five million passengers annually.
