Economic growth of Med-View Airline shown by figures recently announced to shareholders at the annual general meeting by the Managing Director Alhaji Muneer Bankole could be cheery. He said the company’s growth in the aviation industry had continued with accelerated efforts that have made the airline stand out significantly among her contemporaries. Med-View is the only airline listed on Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE.
The airline’s mid-year [ended June 30 2017] performance records showed a growth of 27 percent profit after tax of N857 million against N672 million the same period in 2016. Gross revenue grew by 48 percent from N8.7 billion to N13.007 billion in 2017. Operating cost rose from N7.748 billion to N9.982 billion as a result of rise in the cost of aviation fuel and cost of lease of aircraft for local operations.
Med-View Airline said it spent N1.257 billion on lease of aircraft in H1, without similar expenses within the same period in 2016. It also spent N4.506 billion on aviation fuel, an increase of 60.2 percent above N2.811 billion in 2016. Aviation alone accounted for 45 percent of the total operating cost in 2017, against 35 percent in 2016.
Cost of administration marginally rose from N1.914 billion to N1.978 billion; and finance rose to N171 million against N55 million in 2016, as a result of rise in interest charges on overdraft from N21.3 million in 2016 to N114.636 million in 2017. The airline ended the H1 with profit before tax of N945 million, against N739 million and profit after tax of N857 million against N672 million.
After Med-View Airline maiden flight in 2007 with Hajj operation, Alhaji Bankole said the airline has continues to record rise in its operations. The airline’s domestic routes cover Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Owerri, Yola, Maiduguri, Enugu and Kano. Its regional routes are Accra [Ghana]; Freetown [Sierra Leone] and Monrovia [Liberia].
