Aircraft lessors are set to resume offering dry leases to Nigerian airlines, following renewed negotiations led by Nigeria's aviation minister, Festus Keyamo, the country's This Day newspaper reported.
Keyamo reportedly had discussions with AerCap and Boeing to encourage lessors to restart the leases, and the two companies allegedly expressed their willingness to do so if the country met certain conditions. An unnamed source told the newspaper that lessors were impressed by the ability of Air Peace (P4, Lagos) to pay USD20 million monthly for wet-leased aircraft.
In April, Keyamo said he would engage with lessors and OEMs to pass on the message that the federal government was taking action to ensure lessors' rights under the Cape Town Convention. This included a "practice direction" to Nigerian judges not to obstruct the return of dry-leased aircraft, enabling aircraft owners to obtain speedy assistance from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and requiring courts to grant relief to creditors seeking to reclaim aircraft within ten days.
Keyamo said these measures would facilitate aircraft leasing and improve Nigeria's compliance with international standards. He hoped the development would improve the fleet sizes of Nigerian airlines to meet growing passenger demand and potentially lower domestic airfares. Most Nigerian airlines operate with small fleets of less than ten aircraft, according to ch-aviation fleets data.
Boeing declined to comment, while Air Peace and AerCap were not immediately available.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Air Peace dry-leases seven B737s (three B737-300s and four B737-500s) from AerCap, but all except one - B737-500 5N-BUJ (msn 28721) - are stored or in maintenance. It also dry-leases three E145s from Citibank (of which two are not flying) and one from US lessor Regional One that flies under the Air Peace Hopper brand between Lagos and Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Douala (Cameroon), according to ADS-B data. The airline wet-leases two B737-700s from Mongolia's Eznis Airways, ch-aviation fleets data shows. As previously reported, Air Peace will also damp-lease four B737-800s from AirExplore (ED, Bratislava) for the IATA Winter 2024/2025 season.
