To say Barrister Allen Onyema is an aviator, nationalist and philanthropist per excellence, is stating the obvious. But the manner with which he warmed his way into the very keenly competitive aviation industry and captured the lion share of the domestic Aviation market in Nigeria, remains a puzzle for marketing strategists to unravel.
When his Air Peace made its entry into the aviation industry as a scheduled Air domestic operator in 2013 not many industry analysts gave it a chance to survive the first three years in operation, considering the high mortality rate of domestic airlines even the ones set up by well-known and experienced brains in the industry in Nigeria.
Founded in 2013, Air Peace was started with the intention of using it as an engine to provide economic opportunities to Nigerian youths. The airline, which began operations with Dornier 328s and Boeing 737s aircrafts, now operates a modern fleet of 34 aircraft, including five brand new E195-E2s and 5 Airbus 320s with many firm orders expected to be delivered before this year runs out
« It is the first airline in Africa to acquire and operate Embraer 425 fleet making it the launch customer in Africa for the E2s, the newest, most efficient and most comfortable aircraft in the segment.
« The airline is also the global launch customer for Embraer’s innovative premium staggered seating design. The airline has 13 firm orders for the E195-E2s, with 17 remaining purchase rights for the same model while it operates eight ERJs 145. Five of the 13 firm orders were delivered in 2021, with more to be delivered this year, » said the spokesman for Air Peace, Stanley Olise in a statement.
The airline within its short period of coming to the industry with a policy of leaving no city behind, operates to 20 Nigerian airports, six regional routes and two intercontinental destinations.
Air Peace, which has been operating scheduled commercial flights into the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) since July 2019, assured that it would continue to scale up its service delivery to surpass the expectations of air travellers, especially with the activation of its ambitious fleet modernization scheme and a renewed commitment to unequalled customer experience. Air Peace has also been designated by the Federal Government to fly into other international destinations such as Guangzhou-China, Delhi-India, UK and Houston, Texas, USA.
Not minding the achievements recorded in fleet and routes expansion, the philanthropic and nationalistic image the management of Air Peace has cut for itself has kept many Nigerians querying the need for the proposed national carrier.
It is on record that Air Peace filled the gap created by the demise of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways, when it volunteered itself to rescue Nigerian’s youths trapped in South Africa during the xenophobic attacks on the citizens of other African countries.
Unlike his contemporaries in the industry, it is getting clearer to many industry watchers that Barrister Onyema has not established Air Peace solely for economic motives, but to help Nigeria reclaim her glory amongst the comity of nations with viable and dependable commercial airlines.
With Air Peace as her flagship airline, Nigeria can go out there and comfortably get involved in aero politics and get her desires met. This was demonstrated recently when a United Arabs Emirates national carrier, Emirates Airlines was banned from operating into Nigeria when the government of UAE denied Air Peace a slot at Dubai airport. Air Peace suddenly attained the instrument with which Nigeria can fight and defeat mega or legacy carriers of the world.
Also, at a time the nation was in dire need of a reliable airline to fly her national teams to competitions during their qualifying matches for the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the World Cup competitions, Air Peace came in to register itself as the official airline sponsor of the Nigerian National teams.
With this, it is now assured that no Nigerian team would ever arrive at the venue of any of their matches late again. Apart from encouraging and motivating the players with his presence during the matches, the CEO of Air Peace also gave them financial gifts.
This was also demonstrated during the qualifying matches of the Super Eagles when he had to be there personally to motivate them and promised them cash rewards which he fulfilled.
Also, at the recently concluded AFCON competition held in Cameroon, Onyema who promised to give the Super Eagles a whopping sum of N50 million (50, 000,000) should they win the competition and brought the cup to Nigeria for the fourth time, gave the team a sum of N10million (N10,000,000) for every goal scored at the competition after defeating the Egyptian national team during their opening match.
With many more benefits coming to Nigeria through Air Peace especially with the signing of a maintenance agreement with Embraer recently in Dubai and a maintenance hangar in view, the mission of Barrister Allen Onyema to use the establishment of Air Peace to give social and economic empowerment to Nigerian youths to ensure peace and security around the country would sooner than expected be realized.