Yemisi Izuora
Industry operators have identified the inability of the airlines to work together as one of the major problems of the industry.
But the Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema said that the key to success in the industry is for the airlines to work together, promising that his airline would be willing to code-share with any other domestic carrier.
“We can go into code-sharing with any airline that wants to do business with us. We will prefer code sharing to merger. We have invested so much into our operation that it will be difficult to merge with another airline that is not ready to pursue our goal in setting up of the Air Peace. We want to employ more Nigerians. We are out to provide jobs for Nigerians”, Onyema said.
Onyema spoke on the plan to expand fleet, saying, “We take it a day after another. First and foremost, we started with a fleet of seven aircraft .If we have started with two aircraft, yes, we might be talking of expansion now but we started with seven aircraft. At times with more aircraft, they are not available for operation, because they are down or probably, they have gone for maintenance. However, nobody wants to be static. We look forward to adding to our feet. When God says it is time for expansion, we will do that. It is the wish of every airline to expand. We do not want to bite more than we can chew. Greed at times can make people want to service every route. For us, we want to be sure the route we want to operate into will be is viable.”