By Jonathan Ugbal and Sylvia Akpan
The Aero Cally flight N2176 from Calabar to Abuja on Tuesday was delayed for about 40 minutes due to a video shoot for the advert of the proposed airline floated by the Cross River State government, CallyAir.
Aero Cally is a contraption of Aero Contractors, an existing airline and CallyAir, the proposed airline to be floated by the Cross River State government. It operates two Boeing 737-300 purchased in 2020 by the Governor Benedict Ayade’s administration.
And the flight, initially scheduled for 9:45HRS eventually departed at about 10:28HRS according to RadarBox. It landed at 11:06HRS in Abuja available flight data suggests.
Ayade, musical star, Iyanya, Miss Africa 2020 and passengers aboard Aero Cally’s flight N2171 from Lagos will all star in the video advert.
It is unclear whether Mr. Ayade’s administration has begun the process of obtaining an Air Operator’s Certificate, but passengers were not pleased over the delay.
“I was hoping that the flight will leave on time because I had a connecting flight elsewhere, luckily for me, that flight was delayed by an hour,” David Adoga (not actual name) told CrossRiverWatch.
Iyanya and Miss Africa were aboard the flight from Lagos with another passenger telling this Newspaper that their de-boarding process was delayed by a few minutes for a “touch-up to the makeup she (Miss Africa) was putting on.”
Government House Calabar sources say Mr. Ayade directed that a red carpet be used to show class with his over NGN35 million official BMW 740li, a Polaris Slingshot valued at over NGN7 million and a retinue of other cars including a couple of BMW R1100rt police bikes worth over NGN6.5 million each.
Some of his aides including aviation Commissioner, Jake Enyia also featured in the shoot with frontline girls selected from different bands of the Carnival Calabar.
Below are pictures from the shoot…
