Med-View Airline took delivery of a Boeing 777-200 in August 2016, arriving in Lagos from Lisbon, Portugal, just a week after the carrier had received a 463-passenger Boeing 747. The new 777, configured with 30 business class and 293 economy seats for a total capacity of 323 passengers, was dedicated specifically to the airline's 2016 Hajj operations, according to the carrier's executive director for technical affairs, Engineer Lukman Animashaun, who received the aircraft at the Hajj terminal of Murtala Muhammed Airport.
The airline said it expected to airlift more than 10,000 intending pilgrims from Lagos, Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Edo, Kaduna and Kano states, alongside members of Nigeria's armed forces, to the Holy Land for that year's pilgrimage. Med-View's managing director and chief executive, Alhaji Muneer Bankole, said the airline had airlifted pilgrims for a decade without major incident, crediting both operational discipline and what he described as divine favour for the carrier's Hajj track record.
Flying Direct to Madinah
Bankole highlighted the airline's practice of flying pilgrims directly into Madinah rather than routing them through Jeddah, sparing passengers a roughly six-hour road journey across Saudi Arabia at what he said was considerably higher cost to the airline in airport charges. He said the new Boeing 777 would join the carrier's existing 747 and 767 aircraft in handling that year's pilgrim airlift.
Expansion Plans Beyond Hajj
Beyond the pilgrimage season, Bankole said Med-View intended to launch services to Dubai once the Hajj exercise concluded, alongside an expansion into Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Monrovia, Liberia, via Accra. The fleet additions underscored the scale of Nigeria's annual Hajj logistics operation, in which domestic carriers competed for a share of the lucrative pilgrim traffic under arrangements coordinated by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria.