The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation, Hajiya Binta Bello, has said that establishing a national carrier is a priority of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Hajiya Bello stated this in Abuja while receiving the report of a committee constituted to look into the modalities of establishing a new national carrier. The committee was inaugurated on August 24, 2015.

Bello assured the committee that the recommendations will be critically studied by the ministry which will make its recommendations to the President for his consideration and its possible implementation.

The committee chairman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, while delivering the report, said that they consulted comprehensively with a total of 74 stakeholders, ranging from airline operators to aviation agencies, service providers, financial consultants, institutional investors, aircraft and parts suppliers, former staff of the defunct Nigeria Airways Ltd, maintenance and repair organisations, developers, aerodrome designers/builders and aviation staff.

The chairman added that the acceptance of the recommendations made by the committee by the authority will impact positively on the aviation industry in Nigeria, which, he believed, will translate into better service delivery and safer operations.

Abdulsalam said the report, apart from employing consultation strategy, also employed the system thinking paradigm as a pictorial analysis tool for understanding the inherent dynamics and complexities for establishing a national carrier.

The committee, on inauguration, was mandated to review previous consultants' submissions and recommendations on a national carrier, invite submissions from the Asset Management Corporation Of Nigeria(AMCON) on the debt profile of the domestic airlines, consult widely with stakeholders on the establishment of a national carrier, review the report of the failure of the Nigeria Airways and other private airlines, consult with interested international partners on setting up a national carrier on a public-private partnership basis, develop the best (optimum) model for a national carrier for Nigeria and consider any other matter incidental to any of the above terms.