The Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, has revealed that many African airlines are also guilty of hostile actions towards Nigerian carriers, in addition to foreign airlines.
Speaking at the 48th Annual General Meeting and exhibition of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) in Lagos, Onyema shared his experiences with airport charges in African countries where Air Peace operates.
He commended Ghana for its cooperation but stated that other African countries have been using exorbitant airport charges to frustrate Air Peace’s operations.
Onyema explained that while these countries allow their airlines to operate freely in Nigeria, they restrict Air Peace’s access to their markets.
He said: “It took us four years to get approval to fly into a West African country, but their airline has been coming into Nigeria for many years.
“When we eventually started flying, they wanted to chase us away with exorbitant airport charges.
“They told us to pay $12,000 per landing. We cannot implement SAATM in a lopsided way and expect it to work.”
He also mentioned that some countries send Air Peace bills running into millions of euros without explanation, and even resorted to court judgments in foreign courts to enforce payment.
Onyema emphasized that Nigeria is a welcoming country, but Air Peace faces stigmatization in other countries.
He highlighted Air Peace’s success on the Lagos-London route, attributing it to addressing the issues that led to the failure of other Nigerian airlines on the same route.
He said: “We studied to find out why Nigerian airlines failed on the London route, we know the issues and we addressed them. It is not totally the fault of Nigerian airlines. If I didn’t go to the media to expose what Gatwick and other airlines were doing to us, we would not have lasted on the Lagos-London route for two weeks.”
