Emirates Airline Flies to Liberia Soon

MONROVIA – The Liberia Civil Aviation Agency (LCAA) has begun strong negotiations with Dubai-based Emirates Airline to begin flight to Liberia.

In an exclusive interview at Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, Morocco, on Thursday, January 28, Director General of the LCAA, Richelieu Williams, told our business correspondent that Liberia was receiving favorable responses from Fly Emirates and that the negotiations between the two parties continue to gain momentum on daily basis.

Emirates Airline was established as the official airline of the United Arab Emirates about 25 years ago and has grown to be one of the world’s best airliners.

Emirates flew its first route out of Dubai on October 25, 1985 with just two aircraft – a leased Boeing 737 and Airbus 300 B4.

The airline now has over 700 aircraft that fly across the world including regular flights to the United States.

Williams said the air route will be stimulated between Monrovia and the United States if Emirates Airline begins flights to Liberia.

Analysts welcome the LCAA’s drive to land Emirates Airline in Liberia as the long-awaited American airline, Delta, continues to delay in resuming flights to the country.

If all go as planned, Emirates will join SN Brussels, a Belgian airliner and Europe’s current biggest airliner flying to Liberia.

Three other leading African airliners, Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airways and Royal Air Maroc, including a host of smaller African airliners, are flying to Liberia.

Williams also took the opportunity to laud Royal Air Maroc for commencing flights to Liberia.

He said the Moroccan Government and Royal Air Maroc have over the years demonstrated their commitments to helping to improve Liberia’s aviation industry.

But the Liberian aviation expert was quick to add that it would have been difficult for the LCAA to land such support from Morocco if the aviation industry had been politicized.

“What we actually need to improve aviation in Africa is the political will, not political interference,” he stated.

Royal Air Maroc, he said, has since honored the memorandum of understanding it had signed with Liberia a year and a half ago to begin flights to Liberia.

He indicated that the LCAA is now trying to convince the Moroccans to, at the implementation of the second part of the MOU, begin freight freedom rights to connect to the United States.

“This will create competition because Royal Air Maroc also flies to the United States. This will make it easier for all of the parties because Royal Air Maroc is our own African airline,” Williams explained.

The LACC Director General commended the recent air show colloquium he attended in Marrakech, Morocco and challenged participants to utilize the advantages given them. He also called on the organizers, however – Royal Air Maroc and the country’s Ministry of Transport and Equipment – to extend invitations to their guests at least a day before the air show.

“This will enable invitees to adjust to the environment and get firsthand information they would need before the conference starts,” he noted.

Our business correspondent, who covered the air show, said most of the attendees arrived at the air show very late, especially members of the African delegation.

“There wasn’t enough time to ask the panelists more questions. It should have been more like an open forum where participants would have ample time to ask the questions they wanted,” he observed.

Williams suggested that the number of days be extended from four to at least seven days, and that information sheets should be sent to representatives two or three months prior to the start of the air show to enable them to adequately prepare themselves.

He also suggested that participants leave a day after the close of the conference. Some of the participants including the Liberians and the Gambians, left before the close of the conference on Friday, January 29.

Air shows provide a forum for manufacturers in the aircraft industry from across the world to demonstrate their machineries.

They provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ where products and spare parts for commercial airliners, fighter jets and carriers, as well as those on military vessels are sold and advertised.

Potential buyers and dealers are major attendees at air shows around the world.

It is also an event where pilots demonstrate the capabilities of the airplanes, both fighter and commercial.