Can Air Peace survive the tough competition mounted against it by big Airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Air France and KLM? Shortly after Air Peace began flying to London at far cheaper price compared to the other established players, the proprietor got more than what he bargained for.
Onyema, who is the chairman of Air Peace, accused the foreign airlines of slashing flight prices on the route below operational cost.
Onyema, while featuring on Channels TV on Tuesday night said that there was an “unspoken alliance” among foreign airlines to use lower pricing to eject Air Peace from the Nigeria-London route.
The Air Peace Chairman said that if they take out Air Peace prematurely, this country will pay dearly for it 10 times over as billions will be lost through another heavy strain on the naira.
Until Air Peace joined the London route, flight ticket price of the Lagos-London route was as high as N3.5m but with Air Peace pegging a return economy class ticket for N1.2m, foreign airlines such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Qatar Airways have also slashed their prices below cost price.
Speaking on the Channels TV programme, the Air Peace Chairman said that foreign airlines operating the route “are fighting back”, adding that “We are being deliberately frustrated in all ways.”
Onyema, who cited ground-handling and space allocation difficulties at Gatwick Airport in the last couple of days said that “It’s a very devilish conspiracy.”
He said that “All of a sudden, (foreign) airlines are underpricing, 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.
“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.”
The Air Peace boss invited other Nigerian airlines to join the Nigeria-UK route to break the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by foreign carriers operating into the four major gateway airports of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.
He said, “I invite other Nigerian airlines to join the fray, let them come, let all of us do international operations. Yes, international aeropolitics is very dirty but somebody must pay the price.”
