By Fidel Ozugha
The Air Peace airline commencement of direct flight operations from Lagos to Gatwick Airport, London on March 30, 2024, has brought unspoken hostilities to the only Nigeria’s indigenous airline on that route.
The Chairman of Air Peace airline, Barr Allen Onyema disclosed this during Channels Television’s Politics Today program. He said that other carriers are purposely reducing airfares on the route with the aim of pushing his carrier out of the lucrative route.
These hostilities cannot be unconnected to the price of international flight tickets on the Lagos-London route which Air Peace’s introduction of a return economy class ticket price is now N1.2 million. Before Air Peace opened operation into the route, tickets were selling as high as N3.5 million by foreign carriers like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Qatar Airways, but with Air Peace around, they found themselves compelled to significantly reduce their fares in order to remain competitive in the market.
Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, SAN
While asserting existence of what he called ”unspoken alliance” among foreign airlines, Barr Onyema alleged that these airlines are employing lower pricing strategies with the aim of forcing Air Peace off the Nigeria-London route.
“If they take out Air Peace prematurely, this country will pay dearly for it, 10 times over, billions will be lost, there will be another heavy strain on the naira. We are being deliberately frustrated in all ways,” he said, citing groundhandling and space allocation difficulties at Gatwick Airport in the last couple of days.
“It’s a very devilish conspiracy. All of a sudden, (foreign) airlines are underpricing, below the cost, it’s not up to one month, an airline was advertising $100, another one $305, $350. Fill up the entire aircraft and carry people on the wings, it’s not even enough to buy your fuel. So, why are they doing that? Their governments are supporting them because Nigeria has been a cashcow for everybody.
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“Their governments are supporting them to do this and take Air Peace out. The idea is to take Air Peace out and the moment they succeed in taking Air Peace out, Nigerians will pay 20 times over again.”
To avoid them achieve their aim and cause Nigerians to suffer, Onyema called other Nigerian airlines to join him in the Nigeria-UK route to break the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by foreign carriers operating into the four major gateway airports of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt. He expressed his profound gratitude and appreciation to President Bola Tinubu and Minister Festus Keyamo for being “solidly behind” Air Peace even as the airline navigates the politics side of operating to London.
“I invite other Nigerian airlines to join the fray, let them come, let all of us do international operations. Yes, international aeropolitics is very dirty but somebody must pay the price,” he said.
It would be recalled that Air Peace airline venturing into the Nigeria-UK route was applauded by many industry observers who viewed it as a positive step forward.
Encouraged by Air Peace’s initiative, Having blazed the trail, there is now increased interest and a growing support for other local airlines to consider launching international flights to lucrative routes. This will expand the opportunities therein and as well expand the stiff-neck competition in the aviation sector.
