Air Peace is among the Top 5 international Airlines in Nigeria and will be honoured with the Award of the Best Nigerian International Airline in 2021. To qualify for this award we X-rayed its operations in 2021.
Recently the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority NCAA released the executive summary of flights in Nigeria for 2021. It was an interesting piece of statistics. It defies the trending lore’s of Aviation Blues. The data was in 2 Parts. International Operations and the Domestic.
IbomAir had the Best Records for Domestic Operations and Wins the Award of the Best in Nigeria. Air Peace came Second on all Scores as the Second Best in Nigeria.
On the international scene, Africa World Airlines, AWA came first and wins the Award as the Best International and Best African Airline and Air Peace was 4th out of 27 International Airlines Operating in Nigeria. It also came Second as the Best African Airline in Nigeria.
That is a major outing for the much maligned Nigerian Airline. It did better than all European Airlines except for Lufthansa and Turkish and better than all African Airlines except for Africa World Airlines, AWA.
It had no unresolved complaint. Which means there was zero complaint lodged with NCAA that was not resolved. With 65,037 international passengers flown to 8 destinations in 2021 there were only 12 cases of misplaced baggage.
It had 31% of its International flights delayed which is better than most European and African Airlines.
To be among the Top 5 International Airlines is a major feat for a Nigerian Airline. It is using the newest planes flying in Nigeria today. The Brand new E195 E2 of which Air Peace has 5 already delivered is the Newest Planes that flies in Nigerian Airspace. Air Peace is the First Airline to use the E2 in Africa.
But anytime you go online someone in Nigeria is critising Air Peace for flight delays and cancellations. There are 10 reasons why Nigerian Airlines delayed over 50% of their flights in 2021. I will analyse the 10 reasons why Nigerian Airlines delay flights soon but let me look at Air Peace domestic operations today which is where all the complaints come from.
If Air Peace had no domestic operations in Nigeria it will be ranked amongst the Best Airlines in Africa.
Domestic Operations.
Air Peace operated 17,861 flights within Nigeria in 2021. It delayed 9,908 which is 55% of operated flights. It cancelled 126 flights which is 1% of flights done. It had 16 Air or Ramp returns, that is flights that returned to start up without completing the initial journey. It had ZERO lost baggage and carried about 3 million passengers to 18 airports in Nigeria.
Now think of this. An Airline carried 3 million passengers and not one bag was lost. It had only 10 unresolved cases with NCAA in 2021. I guess those are the ones going to court.
So, if only 43 cases were reported to NCAA against Air Peace then who were those people posting complaints on Social Media every day?
If 9,908 flights were delayed and we assume each flight carried 50 passengers, that gives us about 500,000 angry passengers with access to Social media. They will all be posting on Social media for at Least 24 hours.
For an Airline that carried 3 million passengers these 500,000 angry Passengers do a lot of damage.
With 34 Planes of which 20 are active Air Peace is exposed to this Social Media lynching Nigerian Style.
In 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021 Nigerian Domestic Airlines had over 50% of their flights delayed but because Air Peace is the ‘Big Boy’ in Nigeria, it gets the most bashing on Social media even when it is not the worst offender.
While congratulating Air Peace for being among the Best International Airlines in Nigeria I would suggest the Government assist domestic airlines to improve on schedule integrity for local flights. Some domestic airlines are doing less than 30% delay. It will be nice to have 30% delay threshold for all domestic airlines in 2022. Then we can push it to less than 20% in 2023.
Meanwhile kudos to the Air Peace team for doing Nigeria proud.
By Ikechi Uko
