Ahead of domestic travel restart, Air Peace on Wednesday embarked on out of storage test flights for its 25 aircraft.
The exercise which the carrier described as “Shakedown Flights”, according to its spokesman, Stanley Olisa was aimed at ensuring the aircraft are in tip – top condition having been grounded for close to three months under very strict storage maintenance.
Besides, Olisa said the airline embarked on the exercise to demonstrate its strength and readiness to resume operations with the mixed fleet of aircraft; including three wide body Boeing 777 crisis crossing the skyline from Lagos to Abuja, Port Harcourt and back to Lagos without passengers.
Olisa said the shakedown flights were also part of the measures the carrier has developed to guarantee the safety of both passengers and blew when operations resume.
He said the aircraft have been in storage mode for a couple of months and extensive maintenance checks have been carried out to keep them up to the required standards.
According to Olisa: “Within this period of flight ban, we have ramped up technical maintenance of all our aircraft, scaled up cabin refresh and carried out thorough disinfection to ensure they remain fit for the skies when the authorities flag off operations”.
He added that the aircraft are now being brought out of storage and the pilots have been testing them, stressing that all pilots and flight attendants have been retrained in line with NCAA directives.
On the airline’s readiness to resume regular flights, he stated: “As you know, we have been operating ‘special flights’ to local and international destinations, and we have more of such flights in the works. This accentuates our preparedness for operation restart as our pilots, cabin crew and engineers have been hands-on and are very current. So, we are hundred percent ready to resume”.
It has also operated several evacuation flights to India, Israel and China in the last two months.
