By Kelechi Deca
When Air Peace started flying into London’s Gatwick Airport in March, 2024, Nigerians celebrated, but the ululation was quite subdued, it was a situation of when the desirable is not available, the available becomes desirable. Air Peace and Nigerians wanted a direct flight from Lagos to Heathrow, London’s major gateway airport, and one of the busiest hubs in the world. The British government refused. Nigeria kicked against that decision. This was because of the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, with the latter’s refusal of the country’s carrier, Air Peace, to use Heathrow airport for its operations.
The refusal by the British authorities was quite unreasonable and unfair, so reasoned most Nigerians. This is because British Airways and Virgin Atlantic – two of the country’s leading airlines share between them 21 flights to Nigeria every week, using the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. So why shouldn’t Air Peace, the only Nigerian airline that applied for a slot at London’s Heathrow Airport get a place. As the battle raged to the point of descending into diplomatic fisticuffs with the intervention of the Nigerian government, the UK authorities succumbed to pressure and conceded a once-daily slot to Air Peace from Lagos to Gatwick, totaling seven frequencies weekly. The first operation began on 31 March with 260 passengers using Air Peace’s Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
However, the Airline did not give up the chase for a slot at Heathrow. The Nigeria-London route is the heaviest intercontinental route by traffic volume in West Africa thus having huge potential for Air Peace, and the airline knows this especially against the backdrop of the fact that of British Airway’s 14 weekly flights to Nigeria and seven to Virgin Atlantic, amounting to 21 frequencies per week, compared to only seven weekly frequencies allowed to Air Peace. A very sizable one that does not sit well with Nigeria within the context of BASA.
With this new development, Air Peace will fly to London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, and also commence flights from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja very soon to London Gatwick Airport aimed to supplement its Gatwick-Lagos operation. This will give Abuja based passengers the opportunity to fly direct from their base instead of traveling first to Lagos to board flights to Gatwick even though Air Peace sells its Lagos-London Gatwick tickets inclusively with the domestic flights from different parts of Nigeria.
However, the transfer systems at both Murtala Mohammed (MM2) Domestic Terminal and the GAT-1 Terminals are not the best with passengers feeling flustered and stressed with the movements which are about three kilometers away from the international terminal. This makes international-to-domestic connecting flights a hassle, which has been a key issue with Air Peace strategy of selling international tickets with domestic connecting tickets.
With this slot, it is believed that Air Peace’s first Heathrow flight will touch down on October 26, the day northern carriers switch to winter schedules based on IATA slot seasons. The Airline will operate three times weekly using its Boeing 777-200ER, it is expected that Air Peace would get all its Boeing 777 series active to be able to service its ambitions. Presently, it has four Boeing 777s, this is made up of two B777-200 ER, and two B777-300ER, while two are parked, two are in service, and the complement of all four equipment would help it navigate the much demanding and strict nature of operating at Europe’s busiest airport.
It has now secured slots, but not as many as it hoped for. This is why it’ll also add Gatwick to Abuja flights increasing costs and complexity in serving the UK capital. On October 28, Air Peace plans to commence the Abuja to Gatwick operations. There are huge expectations that as the Airline improves its offerings, it would increase that traffic volume on the Abuja-Gatwick route following its relative success on the Lagos-Gatwick route.
The Nigeria to United Kingdom route is probably the country’s heaviest intercontinental airline route as it is serviced by three airlines all doing daily flights from Lagos to London
And another daily flight between Abuja and London all adding to 27 flights weekly. That is huge numbers against the backdrop that all three airlines deploys wide-bodied equipment such as the Boeing 777-200ER, Boeing 777-300ER by British Airways and Air Peace, while Virgin Atlantic alternates with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 on the Lagos-London route.
A breakdown of the above shows the huge passenger traffic implications involved and why it is a huge market with great potential thus needing more opening up. For example, a Boeing 777-300 ER has a maximum passenger capacity of over 500 depending on the class configurations; A two class configuration carries between 368 to 369 passengers while a three class configuration carries between 364 to 368 passengers. For the Boeing 777-200ER being used by Air Peace, it has a maximum passenger load of 440, and ferries between 314 to 400 passengers depending on the configurations.
The Airbus A350 has three classes. The B787-8, B787-9, and B787-10, they pull from 210 to 336 for the stretched B787-10 while the 787-8 and 9 have maximum capacities of 250 and 280 respectively. When one factors all these numbers, it becomes clearer why the entrance of Air Peace into the league matters a lot, and also how having three different frequencies weekly may be a game changer on the Nigeria-United Kingdom route for Nigerians, and also for the Airline.
Kelechi Deca, a journalist and public Affairs analyst writes from Lagos
