The chairman Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema has alleged that foreign airlines operating the Nigeria-UK route are deploying all the weapons in their arsenal to frustrate its operation on that route.
He said in an interview on Channels Television that the mega carriers had formed an “unspoken alliance” to deliberately undercut airfares on the route as part of a scheme to push Air Peace out of international operations.
“It is a very devilish conspiracy. All of a sudden, (foreign) airlines are under pricing, 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 cash cow for everybody,” he said.
Onyema further said the foreign airlines are capable of doing anything, including charging any price because their home governments give them some form of support and security.
He said in the event that his airline pulled out from the UK route, Nigerians would be the worse for it.
“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,”
“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 added.
Recall that the airline had on March 30, 2024 started its flight operations from Lagos to Gatwick Airport in London.
Besides, it crashed the fare to as low as N1.2 million for the economy class ticket.
Prior that, flight tickets on the Lagos-London route was as high as N3.5 million. With Air Peace’s entry and the attendant fare slash, foreign carriers like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Qatar Airways, among others were compelled to reduce their fares significantly.
