Bellview Airlines

In 1992, Bellview Airlines emerged from Bellview Travels Limited, a Lagos-based travel agency, originally concentrating on offering executive charter services using a single Yakovlev Yak-40 aircraft. In 1993 scheduled domestic passenger services commenced with a leased Douglas DC-9-30. In order to expand further, a subsidiary in Sierra Leone was founded in 1995, which later merged back into its parent company.

The Government of Nigeria set a deadline of April 30, 2007, for all airlines operating in the country to re-capitalise to avoid being grounded, in an effort to ensure better services and safety. Bellview Airlines satisfied the criteria of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and was subsequently re-registered for operation.

In October 2009, Bellview Airlines ceased operations after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suspended the airline from its Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) system. The suspension followed the grounding of Bellview’s domestic and regional flights due to a lack of aircraft. The airline announced it was undergoing restructuring and awaiting the delivery of new planes. As a result, ticketing and refund processes were halted, interline partnerships were affected, and passengers with existing bookings faced significant disruption, with no immediate access to refunds through the IATA system.

In July 2009, Bellview Airlines offered scheduled flights to the following destinations:

Africa

Angola

Luanda (Quatro de Fevereiro Airport)

Cameroon

Incidents and accidents

On October 22, 2005, Bellview Airlines Flight 210, a Boeing 737-200 aircraft with 117 people on board, crashed shortly after taking off from Murtala Mohammed International Airport en route to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, killing all 117 people on board. Bellview grounded all flights on the next day, but resumed operation again on October 24.

On December 19, 2005, a Boeing 737 operating a Bellview Airlines flight between Lagos and Freetown made an emergency landing at Accra International Airport in Accra, Ghana due to hydraulical problems. On the following day, Nigerian authorities ordered all Bellview flights to be grounded and suspended the airline's license until December 22.