Allied Air Cargo and Network Aviation Group celebrate 25 years partnership

The carriers provide air freight services to Nigeria and throughout Africa.

Allied Air Cargo was started in 1998 by Captain Val Tongo, a former DAS Air Cargo pilot, and has become the longest serving African all cargo airline.

The company was also the first African all-cargo airline to acquire a Boeing 737-800 freighter, which also happened to be the youngest aircraft of its type to be converted into a cargo aircraft in January 2021.

Today, the carrier operates 4x Boeing 737 freighters from its hub in Lagos on regional and domestic operations, working with several other carriers on a block space and interline basis to serve the African continent from North America, Europe, and Asia, offering an unmatched number of connections for air cargo users in Africa.

The Network Aviation Group, formerly ANA Aviation Services was established by Andy King and Andy Leslie, both the “Andy’s” had worked for various all-cargo carriers before forming ANA and had experience working in Nigeria. In 1985 they took over the commercial management of DAS Air Cargo, an agreement that lasted 20 years and have now developed the company into a leading GSA and capacity management organisation.

In 2013 the company changed its trading name to Network Aviation Group, to represent the company’s global growth and formed separate divisions, Network Airline Services (NAS), providing GSA services plus Network Airline Management (NAM) managing cargo capacity. Today, the Group has 44 offices across the globe and represents 28 carriers at various locations.

In 1998 Allied Air set up as a West African feeder, operating for carriers out of Lagos initially using Boeing 727 freighters and together with ANA, expanded to operating its own flights from Europe with DC10 aircraft, wet-leased from Gemini Air Transport. This operation has now expanded to 5 weekly flights, serving Lagos and Port Harcourt, as well as Accra, Niamey, Libreville and Brazzaville on a regular schedule. Flights depart from Liege in Belgium and Atlanta in the USA and now utilise Boeing 747 freighters leased from Air Atlanta of Iceland.