Oil & Gas Billionaire, Babatunde Babalola Berths New Airline [PHOTOS]

Tunde Babalola, an Ondo born billionaire, has introduced the newest airline in Nigeria, calls it Discovery Air. He explained in an exclusive chat with Encomium Weekly, on what Discovery Air is bringing on board and why he ventured into airline business...See excerpts below and share your thoughts:

Congratulation once again as you received Discovery Air AOC Certificate from NCAA. What should Nigerians expect from Discovery Air?
Safe airline, price friendly airline that people can fly. The aim is to make sure that all Nigerians can actually travel by air no matter the class you belong. Our own idea is that you must be able to fly from point A to point B. Our own passengers are going to be treated like kings and queens because Nigerians deserved the very best when it comes to service. The way we see our airline is that if you pay, it’s our obligation to deliver quality service and that is what we are bringing on board. We are going to try to cover where others don’t go. We want to cover the whole of Nigeria so that people can go to wherever they want to.
Let’s say you want to go to Akure which is about three and half hours by road, you will buy fuel like N8,000 depending on the type of car you are using. Our own idea is to get you to Akure with that N8,000 within 45 minutes. You can as well move from Akure to Port Harcourt or from Uyo to Abuja at a minimal cost. That’s what we are bringing to Nigeria, and of course quality service that you cannot imagine until you experience it.

Talking about quality service, what are the safety measures that you have put in place?
I can tell you for free that in addition to safety measures put in place by NCAA, before any of our planes takes off, all the accountable officers must sign off. These are the people that have years of experience in the industry that their names are at stake, like the managing director, Captain Abudulsalami Mohammed has 36 years experience in aviation industry; the air worthy guy, the engineer, they must all sign. I’m going to fly with same machines likewise my family. We are not going to ask for any extension from NCAA for our checks once its due, even a week before it’s due. That machine is out and another one is in, be rest assured. Comfort and confidence, we want to re-enact that in the mind of Nigerians that air travel is safe, affordable, fast and efficient according to our slogan S.A.F.E. Also, what we are bringing on board is if you want to go to Abuja by 9pm you can with Discovery Air which is not happening in Nigeria at the moment. But if you go to America or other parts of the world you can fly till about 10 or 11pm at night.
Some people may want to do business at night in Abuja so we are going to deploy smaller machines to do that because the volume of people that travel at night is not as much as people that travel during the day, but you should be able to travel. Nigerians should experience a new lease of life, a slight departure from what they are used to.

How many destinations are we looking at for your take off?
We are doing Lagos to Abuja, Lagos to Port Harcourt. Then we will move to Uyo, Akure and other parts of Nigeria before we will do regional flights by God’s grace.

What message do you have for Nigeria as you start commercial operations?
They should have confidence in any Nigerian airline because it’s safer and nobody wants blood on his neck, let’s put the past behind us.

How did you come about the name Discovery Air?

There was a day I was travelling from Lagos to London. I love flying so, I was going through a magazine then I saw Discover London, so I said why should I discover London? That means people too can actually discover Nigeria and it’s always good to discover new things.