Issa serious something. Air Peace airline is not here to joke this year. It’s great news to hear that one of Nigeria’s leading airline is expanding to other Western regions in Africa.

WESTERN REGIONS OPERATIONS 

Air Peace has planned to expand operations to other regions in Africa and six international destinations soon. The international destinations include South Africa, Dubai, Mumbai, Guangzhou-China, Houston and London.

Recalling, 16th February 2017, the airline made its first commercial flight from Lagos, Nigeria to Accra,Ghana. Late last year, the management announced and fixed 15th December 2017 for the launch of their first flights to other regions in Western Africa; Freetown in Sierra Leone, Banjul in The Gambia and Dakar in Senegal. Unfortunately, the fixed date did not come last December due to some industrial actions in the Dakar airport.

However, the condition didn’t set back the airline’s pledge to inaugurate the flights to the destinations. The management promised to fix a new date for the inauguration. January 2018, the management announced the new date for the inauguration of the flights from Lagos to the various destinations. Showing willingness and commitment to expand, they fixed 19th February, 2018 for launching.

Shortly after expanding its local flights to Kano and Yola on 12th and 13th February respectively, the carrier finally delivered on their promise of connecting West African countries. They launched the first commercial flights to Freetown, Dakar and Banjul.  Aviation regulators, top government officials and other prominent people from these 3 destinations welcomed the flight with excitement and approval. Mr Chris Owarah represented the Chairman/CEO of the airline, Mr Allen Onyema. In his words,

“The launch of our Freetown, Banjul, and Dakar services today brings our regional network to four routes, and a total of 16 domestic and West Coast destinations with more than 80 daily flights. In the next few weeks, we hope to add five more services to expand our regional route network to a total of nine destinations. This broad route network, we believe, will form a solid base to link African nations and connect the continent to the rest of the world by air.”

Mr Koroma Balogun, Minister of Transport in Sierra Leone praised the representatives of Air Peace for extending the services to the country.

“We are looking for in-flight quality service, on-time service and adherence to our local content laws in terms of employing our people. And Air Peace has given us the assurance that they would adhere to that,” 

After inaugurating the Freetown flight, the airline departed for The Gambia. The Air Peace representatives were received by Abdoulie Colley, the Director of Operations of The Gambia Airport Authority.

In Dakar, Lot Egopija, Minister in the Embassy of Nigeria, Dakar was pleased the airline was able to fulfill its promise.

“Air Peace coming into Dakar is to create access to the people of both countries and also to further the ECOWAS agreement.“Nigeria has Bi-lateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) with many nations, and having a population of 180 million people, it is a good way of ensuring Nigerians have access to these people and also their businesses. “Many people have preconceived notions about Nigeria, and I hope that Air Peace will be able to allay their fears by connecting them to the country to see our vast potential,”

BENEFITS

Air Peace expansion to other countries in the Western Region of Africa would be a great advantage. This expansion will not only boost mutual relationship but will also strengthen and improve businesses. It will also help create job opportunities for the unemployed in these countries. The expansion will also encourage tourism within the West African region.

CONCLUSION

Senegal has always been on our mind. Now that we have one of Nigeria’s airlines flying there, we really can’t wait to fly with them. We hope the operations can be extended to other regions in Africa so Naija Nomad family can explore Africa seamlessly.

Happy about the expansion? Yes we are! Which other part of the West African region do you want the airline to expand to? We sure want them to hit Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe! Who knows, this post might reach them and also prompt them to expand more