Air Peace is not very peaceful right now.
The Nigerian carrier wants to expand its long-haul service and was recently approved to fly into England.
But not to Heathrow, which is where it wants to be. Instead, the airline is being told to consider service to London Gatwick (LGW) or London Stansted (STN). Both are very fine airports, but not located within the city of London itself, like Heathrow.
And that has made Air Peace, which has several former Emirates Boeing 777s for its long-haul flights, a bit unhappy.
Air Peace CEO Allen Onyema has refused to fly anywhere in England, except for Heathrow. He believes the rights should be reciprocal since Nigeria allows British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to fly into Nigeria’s two largest airports.
“It took seven years for them to come and do the audit and you don’t blame them. Now we have got the approval,” he said. “The next thing is slot and they are telling us to go to Stansted or take Gatwick. I’m not going to Stansted or Gatwick. You come to the primary airport in Nigeria you enjoy the two primary airports. So, you will give me your own primary airport. It must be Heathrow or nothing. We waited seven years and we must be there."
"If Nigeria wants to come out of the doldrums of the dollar issue and the foreign reserves, they need to address the issue of multiple frequencies given to foreign airlines in this country. If Nigeria is flying to London, flying to the United States and every part of the world, the kind of foreign exchange we will attract to this country will be unbelievable.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Heathrow is one of the world’s largest airports and has one of the most expensive takeoff and landing rights. The slots are already taken up and owned by other major airlines.
There is precedent here, however.
Two years ago, Air Peace successfully argued that it wasn’t being given the same landing rights in the United Arab Emirates that Emirates Airlines was being given in Nigeria.
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