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Tag: Air Peace

  • Air Peace commences flights to Freetown, Dakar, others

    Air Peace commences flights to Freetown, Dakar, others

    Nigerian carrier, Air Peace has announced plans to connect Freetown in Sierra Leone, Banjul in the Gambia and Dakar in Senegal starting from Dec. 15.

    The airline made the announcement in a statement issued by its Corporate Communications Manager, Mr Chris Iwarah, on Sunday in Lagos.

    Iwarah said:”We are pleased to announce the second phase of the expansion of our route network on the West Coast of Africa with the commencement of our flights from Lagos to Freetown, Banjul and Dakar on Dec. 15.

    “This is an exciting step in fulfilling our promise to unlock the economies of the region, offer air travelers on business and leisure trips seamless connectivity as well as create jobs for the people.

    “We will operate round-trip flights from our Lagos base to the new routes four times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

    “The service departs the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) for Freetown at 7am (local time).

    “The launch will bring destinations on our regional route map to four. Our West Coast expansion project is still unveiling. We hope to connect about five more routes in the region in the next few weeks.”

    He said the new routes would bring its route network to a total of 14 destinations within and outside Nigeria.

    Iwarah said the airline recently embarked on a project to increase its fleet size to 24 aircraft, adding that the Freetown, Banjul and Dakar routes would be serviced by its Boeing 737 aircraft to guarantee the comfort of its guests.

    He noted that Air Peace made its first scheduled commercial flight out of Nigeria from the MMIA, Lagos into the Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana on Feb. 16.

    According to him, the airline plans to operate flights to five other regional routes as well as six international destinations comprising Dubai, London, Guangzhou-China, Houston, Mumbai and South Africa soon.

  • Air Peace arrested me, two others for raising safety concerns – Akinfolarin

    Oluwaseun Akinfolarin, one of the three passengers aboard an Air Peace 6:30 p.m. flight to Abuja from Lagos on Monday who were arrested and charged to court for alleged unruly behaviour and for obstructing the operations of the airline said he was being persecuted for pointing out they had seat on their emergency exit aisle.

    Akinfolarin who wrote about the incident on his Twitter page, said he was arrested just because he called one of the hostesses on the flight during the routine safety drill and requested to know why the airline had seats blocking the aeroplane’s emergency exits.

    He said his observation sparked a tense debate between some of the passengers and the airline’s staffers which eventually got him [Akinfolarin] and two others to be forced down by security agents, arrested and taken to a police station in the Ikeja area of Lagos.

    They were later granted bail and told to report to the station yesterday.

    Meanwhile, The airline’s Corporate Communications Manager, Mr Chris Iwarah, yesterday, in Lagos, said security personnel from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, had to be invited to restore order in a statement he released to newsmen.

    He said: “We wish to confirm and set the records straight regarding the unruly and disruptive conduct of three passengers (two men and a lady) on our 6:30 Lagos-Abuja service on Sept. 11. AirPeace “During the pre-departure safety briefing by our crew, the three passengers began to query the seating arrangement of the aircraft.

    “Efforts by our crew to let the passengers understand that the seating arrangement was as approved by both the FAAN and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, were rebuffed.” According to him, the pilot-in-command of the flight was later briefed by the crew to intervene but the passengers refused to cooperate with the captain.

    Iwarah said they insisted on bringing the airline’s engineers on board to confirm the airworthiness of the aircraft. He said: ”The passengers insisted that the aircraft was unsafe and would suffer the fate of one other domestic airline which had one of its aircraft crashed some years ago.

    “The unruly passengers prevented our crew from continuing with the safety briefing. “Understandably, other passengers on board the flight became apprehensive and insisted that unruly passengers should be taken off the flight.” “The pilot-in-command, therefore, had no choice than to request the unruly passengers to disembark.

    The passengers, however, refused to comply, leading to the captain of the flight calling for the intervention of FAAN security personnel.” “The passengers also refused to refrain from their disruptive conduct upon the intervention of FAAN security personnel.”

    Iwarah said after about three hours delay, two of the disruptive passengers eventually agreed to disembark, while the lady among them was adamant.

  • Tension as two Air Peace planes collide at Lagos Airport

    Pandemonium broke out at the Muritala Muhammed Airport on Thursday when two aircraft belonging to Air Peace were grounded after they collided on the departure ramp.

    One of the aircraft, a Boeing 737 with the registration mark 5N-BQR, was being towed for departure, before it made contact with the stabiliser of another Air Peace B737 aircraft with the registration mark 5N-BQP.

    Spokesman for the airline, Chris Iwarah, confirmed the incident in a statement.

    “The points of contact of the two aircraft were only slightly impacted, but we took the cautious decision to declare them unserviceable to enable a proper investigation of the incident,” Mr. Iwarah said.

    “There were no passengers on the two aircraft involved in the incident. We have also revised our flight schedule to cater to our esteemed guests on the 14 sectors the two aircraft were scheduled to service today.

    “At the moment, everything is working according to plan and our engineers have already begun repair of the aircraft.”

    The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has already commenced investigations into the incident, while the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has also been notified.