The General Manager, Operations, Max Air, Raymond Omodiagbe has disclosed that the Federal Government had requested the airline to carryout the task of evacuating Nigerians who were left stranded by the Russia-Ukraine war beginning from Wednesday.
On the other hand, Air Peace said it had not started the evacuation process, stressing that this would be made public soon.
Omodiagbe said, “We have been assigned and we are on it. We’ve been airlifting pilgrims to Hajj and doing chartered operations for many years. So, we are not new to this. We have been commissioned and we will depart tomorrow (Wednesday). We are operating tomorrow and it is to start bringing in the people.”
Asked to state the number of flights or airplanes that would be deployed for the operation, Omodiagbe replied, “We are doing it one at a time.”
Responding to a question on when Air Peace would start evacuating Nigerians as required by the Federal Government, a spokesman for the airline, Stanlet Olisa said it would be communicated soon.
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The Federal Government had on Monday said it would on Wednesday begin the evacuation of about 2,000 Nigerians who have fled the war in Ukraine to neighbouring countries.
There were about 8,000 Nigerians in Ukraine, 5,000 of whom were students. The Federal Government had tipped Air Peace and Air Max to airlift the Nigerians who wanted to be evacuated.
Speaking earlier, Onyeama said, “We made Romania the hub and over a thousand Nigerians have crossed there. Poland has about 250, Budapest in Hungary has a similar number, Slovakia is rising rapidly. It is also around 200. There are some Nigerians in a place called Sumy close to the Russian border.”
Onyeama argued that it was not the sole duty of the Federal Government to evacuate Nigerians that were stranded abroad because this was not the global practice. He opined that people who use their own money to travel abroad should be able to return home by themselves.
