NIGERIA’s Air Peace airline has again recorded a great feat with the arrival of its newly acquired Boeing B777-200 aircraft which has made the airline the first and only Nigerian airline to procure and register the brand of airliner in the country.
The development came weeks after the airline earlier took delivery of two Embraer 145 aircraft and set up a subsidiary, Air Peace Hopper to organize its short-haul operations in line with its no-city-left-behind project.
The latest 274-capacity aircraft, which touched down at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos last Friday, was the first of two Boeing 777 airliners Air Peace recently acquired in preparation for its Dubai, Sharjah, London, Guangzhou-China, Houston, Mumbai and Johannesburg services.
The airline is finalising talks to add two more B777 aircraft to its fleet soon.
The aircraft with registration number 5N-BVE and marked “Ifechukwu”, the middle name of the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema, which was flown in by the Chief Pilot of the airline, Captain Victor Egonu and Captain Simon Donoghue, was received by the Chairman of the airline and top aviation personnel.
Speaking on the arrival of the aircraft, Onyema assured that Air Peace, which launched its Banjul, Freetown and Dakar services on February 19, would soon start flights to Dubai, Sharjah, Guangzhou-China, London, Houston, Mumbai and South Africa.
“Air Peace is ready to begin operations on these routes as soon as we get the cooperation of our aviation agencies, our home governments, and the outside governments of the countries we are going to. As soon as we get their cooperation, we will make it happen, “Onyema said.
The feats Air Peace had recorded in just three years of its flight operations, he insisted, were a proof that Nigerian airlines could compete with and even outperform the legacy airlines if there was a level-playing field.
Onyema used the period to dismiss insinuations that Nigerian airlines were not safe, stressing that Air Peace spent up to $2.5 million annually in maintaining a single aircraft on its fleet saying:“in terms of safety, we can assure our guests of the very best because even our technical partner is a firm from the United Kingdom.
“Air Peace cannot be said to be weak or indebted and if there are airlines that are going through that, they should come out and name them instead of generalising.”
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