Nigerian flag carrier, Air Peace airline, yesterday launched direct flight operations from Lagos to Guangzhou in China.
Similar international operations will commence en route Mumbai, India, and Israel, the airline has said. The Asian routes are among a number of routes the Federal Government ceded to the airline before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spokesperson of Air Peace, Stanley Olisa, said the new operations were motivated by the airline’s commitment to seamlessly connect Nigerians to other parts of the world and deepen international socio-economic ties.
Olisa said that the Guangzhou operation begins with once weekly flight and hopes to increase frequencies when operations gain momentum.
He noted that China and India were not new terrains for the airline. “Air Peace has operated a number of special/evacuation flights into both cities of Guangzhou and Mumbai in the past. So, we are very familiar with the airspace. Plans to launch in Tel Aviv, Israel, are in top gear also.
“Air Peace has an unflinching commitment to reducing the air travel burden on Africans, and we will continue to grow our route network as well as modernise our fleet strategically.
“Air Peace has accomplished so much in just seven years of operation, as we now have a network of 20 domestic routes, seven regional routes and two international destinations, including Dubai and Johannesburg, which we launched in 2019 and 2020 respectively,” Olisa said.
Reiterating the airline’s resolve to keep deepening its strategic network connections, in line with its no-city-left-behind mantra, Olisa hinted that the airline also has in the works two other African destinations – Malabo in Equatorial Guinea and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It can be recalled that in March 2022, Air Peace launched its Niamey route, and a few months before then, it flagged off Douala operations from Lagos and Port Harcourt.
The airline parades an optimal, mixed, modern fleet of over 30 aircraft, including five brand new Embraer 195-E2s, and has the largest fleet in West and Central Africa.
