Why Air Peace foray into Intl routes is delayed – COO

Air Peace’s foray into international routes may be a mirage except government’s policies in aviation are relaxed for the carrier to compete with their foreign counterparts, the Chief Operating Officer of the airline, Mrs. Obligation Olajide, has said.

The airline was designated on long haul flights to Houston, London, Guangzhou-China, Houston, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Dubai and Sharjah but yet to operate any of the routes.

She said this on the sideline of the just concluded 5th Aviation Stakeholders’ Forum organised by the Federal Ministry of Transport in Abuja last week,
International airlines such as British Airways, Air France-KLM, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Qatar, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa among others, are having a field day with no challenge from indigenous operators.

In fact, they are consolidating on the Nigerian route and raking in billions of Naira in revenue.No Nigerian carrier currently reciprocates the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with any European or American airlines.

Medview Airline was the last carrier to operate to London and Dubai. It ceased operations to the routes and many others due to insufficient aircraft and harsh operating environment in those countries.

But Air Peace has shown promise following the acquisition of two wide body Boeing aircraft and other airplanes.
The airline recently had firm order for B737MAX.

The Air Peace COO said authorities of most of the international destinations the carrier had been designated to operate to, were either deliberately foot-dragging in processing its application or imposing frustrating conditions to discourage it from flying into their domains.
Some of the destination countries, she said, responded to the airline’s application only after about two years.

Where the destination countries reluctantly approved the airline’s application to fly into their domains, Olajide regretted, impossible charges were imposed to frustrate and discourage it from acting on such approval.

The high charges imposed on Nigerian airlines by other nations, she said, were unfortunately not responded to back home. The foreign airlines were rather pampered in Nigeria and given approval to operate to multiple destinations.