By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, Matthew Anderson, and Mark Feldman
A lot of fanfare has followed the reported launch of a new airline service between the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone. On 26 April 2025, Air Sierra Leone, landed what has been reported as its maiden flight from London’s Gatwick Airport to Freetown International Airport.
However, corporate documents obtained by Africanist Press show that Air Sierra Leone Limited was not incorporated as a private limited company (#16412879) in the UK until 28 April 2025; two days after the airline maiden flight to Sierra Leone from London.
Business insiders in the United Kingdom have questioned how the airline was able to commence operations from UK airports when it only completed business registration after its reported maiden flight to Sierra Leone.
In Sierra Leone, questions are being asked about the true owners of Air Sierra Leone considering that details on the company’s business profile, its shareholders, and investment capital still remain opaque.
Records from the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales list only two individuals as executive directors of Air Sierra Leone: Emmanuel Ayuba Iza and Tonye Rex Idaminabo.
Emmanuel Ayuba Iza, 46, Chief Executive Officer, is said to be a national of St. Lucia, and resident in the United Arab Emirates; whereas his counterpart, Tonye Rex Idaminabo, 40, a consultant, is a Nigerian living in Scotland. The two men are registered as joint shareholders of Air Sierra Leone Limited, although both men do not own more than 50% of the company’s shares.
Aviation authorities and politicians in Sierra Leone have not disclosed the process and procedures they used to scrutinize and approve Air Sierra Leone for a Flag of Convenience (FOC) to operate an airline service in the name of country.
A statement attributed to Alastair Willson, the CEO of Ascend Airways, reported that the new airline will be operated under Ascend Airways; a subsidiary of the Dublin-based Avia Solutions Group. Although this corporate structure is yet to be independently verified, Ascend Airways says it will operate three weekly flights between Gatwick and Freetown on behalf of Air Sierra Leone starting 16 August 2025.
While questions are still being asked about the actual ownership and finances of Air Sierra Leone, the “new airline” re-echoes familiar story of its predecessor: Fly Salone Airlines Limited; launched ten years ago in 2015 by then President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Back then, government authorities and industry leaders called the Fly Salone venture a laudable initiative designed “to transform Sierra Leone into a global tourist destination in the subregion.”
Jihad El Saleh, a Sierra Leone national and his business partner, Haitham Sabrah, a British national, incorporated Fly Salone Airlines Limited on 18 August 2015 to operate flights from the UK to Sierra Leone.
After its registration, Fly Salone Airlines maiden flight left London-Gatwick and landed at the Lungi International Airport in Sierra Leone on Saturday 12 December 2015. On arriving in Sierra Leone, the maiden flight and its crew were greeted with a red-carpet welcome by Sierra Leone’s then President Ernest Bai Koroma and his then Transport and Aviation Minister, Leonard Balogun Koroma, who had facilitated the granting of Sierra Leone’s Flag of Convenience (FOC) to Saleh and Sabrah to operate the airline service between Gatwick and Freetown.
The Fly Salone Airlines deal itself had numerous irregularities from the very start. To begin with, Koroma’s government granted the FOC to Saleh and Sabrah without due diligence. Added to the irregularities in its licensing process, the two businessmen had no real investment capital to operate the airline service, and the company they set up, Fly Salone Airlines, had no planes. For its maiden flight to Sierra Leone, it leased a Boeing 757-200 aircraft from Aviator UK; a company that operates aviation and passenger services from 22 European airports between Helsinki and London-Gatwick.
As it turned out, Fly Salone Airlines operated only for four months between 11 December 2015 and 17 March 2016. On liquidation, British authorities discovered that the company had about £2,072,180 in outstanding debts to creditors.
The two businessmen were then disqualified in October 2017 for seven years by the UK’s Insolvency Service for failing to keep proper business records when running Fly Salone Airlines Limited.
An investigation conducted by liquidators uncovered that the company’s customers paid approximately £264,058 into the personal bank account of one of the directors. From these monies, the director reportedly paid himself approximately £63,243 in the last 2 months of the company’s operation.
The liquidating agency requested refund of the monies illegally paid into the director’s personal account, but the company’s executive failed to comply.
“Due to the director’s non-cooperation, I appointed a tracing agent to assess the director’s assets and financial ability to repay the claim against him. I have also appointed solicitors to instigate legal action against the director for the recovery of the monies he transferred into his personal bank account,” the liquidating agent reported.
Following this, the UK’s Insolvency Services conducted its own investigation into the activities of both Sabrah and Saleh. The investigation discovered that Fly Salone Airlines Limited failed to meet its business requirements.
“Further to investigations of the Insolvency Services regarding the conduct of the company’s officers, both directors Sabrah and Saleh were disqualified on 8 September 2017 to act as directors for seven years,” the report stated.
The liquidation process, which began on 21 April 2016, lasted for more than five years, and was marred by controversial delays only to be completed on 19 October 2021.
However, the 7-year ban on Saleh and Sabrah was not the first time British authorities had acted against the business operations of the two men.
In November 2016, Saleh and Sabrah also incorporated JHS Construction Ltd as directors and joint owners. Corporate records show that JHS Construction Ltd never actually built anything before British authorities closed it on 6 February 2018. The two men similarly set up Starex Exploration and Mining Ltd in April 2013 but it was likewise shut down the following year due to lack of continuing business.
The chain of companies associated with either Sabrah or Saleh that faced similar fates included SL Airlines Ltd, Sierra Bird Ltd, Sierra Airlines Ltd, and Air Salone Ltd; all went into oblivion between 2011 and 2013 without any serious operational history.
Back in 2015 when Fly Salone Airlines announced it had commenced service to Sierra Leone, many questioned the viability of its operations considering that the licensing arrangements were unknown and never disclosed to Sierra Leoneans.
With lack of a proven capital and investment record, it was reported that Saleh and Sabrah were only able to sign an air service agreement with Icelandic Airlines because Ernest Bai Koroma personally acted as financial guarantor for the company in his capacity as president of Sierra Leone.
On assuming office in 2018, Maada Bio instituted several Commissions of Inquiry into Koroma’s administration, especially the Koroma regime’s handling of the Sierra Leone economy. The investigations discovered, among other things, that officials of the Koroma administration had used several of these “ghost and phony investment projects” to accumulate unexplained wealth during the All People’s Congress (APC) tenure in office. The staggering discoveries involved many of the top-ranking APC cabinet officials and several of Koroma’s friends within the international business community.
Since 2018, Maada Bio has continuously used the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to strip Koroma and his business affiliates of their investment interests and corporate shares in several of the shady deals signed during the APC’s ten years in office. These projects have included agreements in mining, energy, infrastructure, telecommunication, and transportation services.