Nigeria’s largest airline Arik Air plans to nearly double its fleet to 52 planes within 10 years and has already ordered some of them from Boeing, a source at the company said on Monday.

Most of the carrier’s existing fleet are Boeing planes and the source, who did not wish to be identified, said the airline would buy most of the new planes from the U.S. planemaker. The source did not say how many had already been ordered or the value of the purchases.

Privately owned Arik Air needs more planes as it aims to add international routes and increase services, including daily flights to New York, to offset a slowdown at home and bring in more hard currency.

SOURCE REUTERS, Read more…