31 January 08

COURT RESTRAINS FEDERAL AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA (FAAN) FROM RELOCATING VIRGIN NIGERIA’S DOMESTIC OPERATIONS TO MURTALA MOHAMMED AIRPORT DOMESTIC TERMINAL 2

Lagos, Nigeria: 31 January 2008: The Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos has today restrained the Federal Ministry of Transportation (Aviation) and other relevant Agencies including the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from forcefully relocating Virgin Nigeria’s domestic operations pending the determination on notice of the order brought before his court.

The case came up for hearing as Virgin Nigeria raised concerns over the violation of the fundamental basis of its formation which is creating a hub in Lagos as stipulated by the Federal Ministry of Aviation (on behalf of the FGN ) and its technical Partners.

Granting the exparte order, Justice Ibrahim Auta of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi refered to the Memorandum of Mutual undertaking (MMU) which recognises that Virgin Nigeria has a legal right to carry out domestic, regional and international flight operations from its hub at Murtala Mohammed International Airport.

He also cited the IATA report of November 7th 2007 which rated the MM2 as falling below operational safety standards.

Virgin Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Conrad Clifford while reacting to the unwarranted attitude of FAAN over the use of armed security Agents to demolish Virgin Nigeria’s domestic business class lounge said that it is unfortunate that relevant authorities have turned a deaf ear to the MMU as well as safety concerns by embarking on forceful ejection of Virgin Nigeria’s domestic operations.

“Virgin Nigeria is committed to continually offer safe flight operations and we will not accede to intimidation to compromise standards”, said Conrad Clifford.

It is instructive to note that one of the concerns raised by the IATA team was the size of the apron being relatively too small for the proposed scale of operations amongst other key safety operational issues.