Lagos-London: How Air Peace Airlines faced internal and external conspiracies – Allen Onyema reveals
The Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace Airlines, Allen Onyema, has revealed how his airline faced challenges from both inside and outside forces.
He mentioned this during an interview on Arise Television’s Morning Show program on Monday.
Onyema mentioned that his airline faced obstacles from “his own country,” which rejected Air Peace’s application for a Technical Country Operators (TCO) permit. This permit would have enabled the airline to operate in various European countries.
He lamented that it took the nation’s leading airlines seven years to get the designation to go into London.
“You suffer what I call both internal and external conspiracies. It took us seven years. We got the designation, I think about six and a half years ago to go into London. Since then, it has been a cat-and-mouse game.
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“We actually procured our three 777s because of this route, not for any other route,… However, we were not allowed to go.
“Whether you like it or not, there is what is called international aero politics, which is very dirty. We applied for the TCO. TCO means Technical Country Operators permit, you must get that one before you start going into any European country, UK inclusive. The TCO organization from Europe wrote our Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority- Do you know Air Peace? Do you know about their designation? And we were denied. My own country denied us, so they threw it back.
“We went back to the NCAA, they said, oh, we didn’t tell them. Who designated us, the Federal Ministry of Aviation, whose duty it was and still is to do that. We said, “Okay, we’re ready.” They refused, they said until they allowed us to apply. So, we got a designation from the federal government, and the NCAA, under the same federal government, was telling us that we should not make any application towards going into the UK.”
Onyema suggested that Nigerian airlines need all the necessary support they could get from the federal government.
