DOMESTIC airline business in the country’s aviation sector in the out gone year has left a sour taste in the mouths of many stakeholders.
The early part of 2018 raised hopes as some of the domestic carriers despite the challenges that confronted them were still able to keep afloat on the various routes they operated.
Gradually and sadly, many of them that could not withstand the heat started to give way while the few remaining continued to struggle with little or nothing to show.
The problem reached its peak with many of the airlines either suspending operations to some routes including international and regional routes they were designated, while few existing on the domestic scene operated abysmally with passengers at the receiving end.
While domestic airlines struggled to remain in business owing to many reasons ranging from unfriendly business environment, double taxation, unstable exchange rate, expensive price of aviation fuel, loose frequencies granted foreign airlines, coupled with the lopsided Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA), business boomed for the foreign airlines who capitalised on the loopholes created by the Federal Government’s inconsistent policies which gave undue preference to them to dominate the scene at the expense of the domestic carriers.
Amidst the misfortunes that befell the country’s domestic airline business in the immediate past year, hope for the flying public was rekindled with the resilience of one of the domestic airlines, Air Peace which was able to remain focused in the face of the harsh situation.
Air Peace which entered the airline business in Nigeria four years ago has been able to carve a niche for itself through the business plan provided by its management led by its chairman, Mr Allen Onyema.
Air Peace presently operates 14 domestic routes in Nigeria and five regional destinations to Accra, Freetown, Banjul, Monrovia and Dakar. The airline is expected in this new year to launch its long-haul flights to Dubai, Sharjah, London, Houston, Guangzhou-China, Mumbai and Johannesburg.
In 2018, while most of the airlines suspended flights on some routes and experienced shortage of aircraft in their fleet, Air Peace did not only grow in the number of aircraft in its fleet but expanded its operations within and outside Nigeria.
The height of the development was witnessed in the ability to take delivery of 10 brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in one fell swoop. Judging by the number of aircraft in its fleet, the airline is now the biggest airline in West Africa.
What’s different about Air Peace?
According to information gathered, what makes the airline different from others lies in its style of management. Happenings in the airline in the last three years have shown that the success so far recorded by the airline could be traced to the decision of its chairman, Mr Allen Onyema to run the airline differently from other domestic airlines.
The magic wand that has been working for the airline lies in the resolve of the Chairman to allow the carrier to be run by the professionals put in charge of strategic positions in the airline where women are occupying top managerial positions, just as all ethnic tribes are well represented in the airline organogram. Besides, the airline has chosen to play the role of a national carrier following the decision of the chairman to employ workers from across the country devoid of any ethnic or religious colouration. In other words, once you are good and qualified and there is vacancy, you are sure of getting employment in the peoples’ airline.
Speaking to Tribune Business, the airline chairman, Mr Onyema declared: “Every Thursday, come to the gate of my office; because they (applicants) know I must pass through there to enter my office, you see over a thousand or even 2,000 people in some cases. It’s like a stadium as people troop in to look for jobs because they heard that Allen Onyema could come out of his office on a Thursday and ask for 200 CVs from applicants hanging out and employ all of them. So, from the far North, from the far East, Mid-West and South West, people are coming from all over the country. They will enter buses at night to arrive Lagos at night, and they will sleep in front of my gate just to get jobs.
“Not minding where they come from I give them jobs. All I need from everybody including those in government is encouragement to do what am doing and I don’t discriminate, everybody knows. That is why people are coming from Sokoto, Maiduguri, Kano, Adamawa, all over, name it rushing to this place for jobs and this is who I am.
“We established this airline to create jobs, we have employed over 3,000 people in less than four years of this airline and I am still going on. So, what we demand from government officials and Nigerians in general is cooperation and encouragement. People should stop demonising Nigerian airlines. We are working under very frustrating circumstances. What we need encouragement not all these orchestrated sponsored attacks on Nigerian airlines.”
What Nigerians should expect in 2019
According to Onyema, in the coming year Nigerians should expect a more rewarding service where passengers will enjoy value for their money.
His words: “Air Peace will give Nigeria and West Africa a sense of pride in the global aviation industry. 2018 was both challenging and exciting for us. It was the year we upped our record of firsts. In the year under review, we launched a number of domestic and regional routes under our no-city-left-behind project on the platform of our subsidiary, Air Peace Hopper.
“We also made history as the first domestic airline to acquire and register the Boeing 777 aircraft in Nigeria. We have so far acquired four Boeing 777s, with two already delivered.
“We also successfully renewed our International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate and Air Operator Certificate (AOC) after a very rigorous process.
“We also diversified the aircraft in our fleet with the inclusion of six 50-seater Embraer 145 jets, which have so far helped our Yuletide operations in no small way.
“The real big leap came in September when we signed a deal with American planemaker, Boeing, for the delivery of 10 brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, making us the first to achieve the feat on the West Coast of Africa.
“We are sincerely grateful to our loyal customers without whose support, preference for our brand and patronage we could not have made a success of the target we set for ourselves in 2018.
“It was quite a challenging year too, given the dire economic situation across the world, but our esteemed customers supported us through it all.
“In 2019, Air Peace is going to give Nigerians something to cheer about. We are going to start our international operations and we are ready. A lot of people have been asking us questions on why we have not started.We don’t want to go the way of the other Nigerian airlines that have withdrawn from the international scene. But when we arrive on the international scene, we shall be arriving for good and it shall be permanent to the glory of God. So that is why we are taking our time by putting all things in place.
“We have to understand that there is what we call international aero politics. Nigeria is one of the most lucrative markets for international airlines, but nobody wants Nigerian airlines to succeed, not even Nigerians for what I don’t understand. There are a lot of ill wishes towards Nigerian airlines including Nigerian investors, we don’t like ourselves.
“Glo is an indigenous telecommunication firm. How many Nigerians are patronising Glo? This has to change. We are determined to move Nigerian forward. We are going to give Nigerians something to cheer about and we expect them to patronise us on the international routes because we have beautiful jets that are well maintained.
“We service our planes in the best places you can think of in the world. Where the legacy airlines of this world maintain their planes is where Air Peace maintains its planes, so we are very airworthy. We even spend more money than most major airlines in the world to maintain our aircraft. What am saying, you can take to the banks and it is verifiable. All you need to do is to call the MROs in America and ask how much Air Peace uses to do its C-Check and how much do the bigger airlines use to do their own C-Check.
“While Air Peace clears all its planes to the next 24 months, most airlines clear to 26 months, 28 months. I am saying this for people to even verify not for just marketing purposes.
“We are going to bring in some brand new airplanes in 2019, but mind you I am not saying that only brand new planes are safe, but every aeroplane is as good as its maintenance, that’s all. Because Nigerians want new planes and have been deceived to believe that it’s only brand new planes that can fly safe, we will give them brand new planes next year.
“We are going to increase our frequencies next year, we are going to increase our fleet next year too. Remember we ordered 10 brand new 737 Max. Nobody is talking about this because there are a lot of ill feelings from high places against Air Peace for nothing. Nobody is talking about the fact that we blazed the trail when we made order for 10 brand new 737 Max airplanes and these are the things that work against our nation. We should begin to encourage indigenous investments that provide jobs to continue providing jobs.”
Expectations from government
“I will like the Federal Government to assist us. I have said it several times in international aero politics, government should help us improve our airports so that domestic airlines can fly at least beyond 6pm into most of our airports. The fact that we ground our aircraft after 6pm is not helpful at all. Also, though the ease of doing business policy of government is helpful but government should monitor the way the policy is being implemented by its civil servants. When they started it worked well. Even though it’s still working, but civil servants in this country should understand that businessmen are partners in progress and not people to be envied devilishly; this should stop.
“We also want the Federal Government to help us play international politics by helping us to smoothen the processes of getting permit from foreign countries for the Nigerian airlines to fly into their countries. I get angry when people say it is only if we have a national carrier that government will support us; that these foreign countries will not play bad aero politics with us. This is arrant nonsense, we are all Nigerians, you must protect your own citizens. American Delta Airlines is not a national carrier, but when Delta is flying here, their government is very interested in how Delta air Lines is being received.
“So our government should also be interested in helping us play aero politics – the government officials, the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should also help in playing aero politics to smoothen things for us, people should stop waiting on the wings for us to fail so that they can say “we have said it” federal government should review the frequencies being given to foreign airlines flying into Nigeria. These frequencies are anti aviation progress, the government should not only stop giving frequencies loosely but review them downward to allow Nigerian airlines grow.
Whenever government wants to approve fifth freedom right to any foreign airline, government should first ask if any Nigerian airline signifies intention to go to such places, that fifth freedom should not be given, fifth freedom is given by other countries on a temporary basis not permanently. Temporarily in the sense that should there be an indigenous airline wanting to operate that frequency, the fifth freedom earlier given to the foreign airline is withdrawn. Foreign airlines should only be given the fifth freedom right to operate to routes where no Nigerian airline is interested in operating to if the home countries of these foreign airlines are frustrating Nigerian carriers from coming to their own countries and they are well treated here, it’s unfair, it’s a serious capital flight, Nigeria should stop wanting the foreign carriers to land in their villages, it does not help the economy of the country. We should live above self and start thinking of the future of indigenous investors. If we continue in the way we are doing, indigenous airlines will die, foreign airlines will take over and the capital flight will diminish the economy of this country. I have been doing business rubbing mind and shoulder with who is who in aviation worldwide and am talking from experience. I thank the federal government for the airports they opened in Abuja and Port Harcourt. I believe President Buhari will do more, he has the interest of the country at heart and I also thank him for all the waivers he has given us and we urge him to do more for us in aviation in 2019. A lot of foreign airlines are jostling to come into this country under different guise, government should look into this.
The post What to expect in 2019 from Air Peace —Chairman appeared first on Tribune Online.
Source Tribune
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