By Uche Mbah
Air peace is continuing its role as the unofficial National carrier in airlifting Nigerians in the diaspora who want to be evacuated from their different locations overseas.
Many Nigerians are cashing in on the opportunity, particularly most Nigerians who some described as marooned in Europe and America, to be evacuated home. The evacuation is in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic. Other nationalities, including Britain and Israel, have been evacuating their citizens from Nigeria. Many used their nationality aircraft or chartered flights.
In the latest development, the airline has been mandated to evacuate Nigerians from Britain using the airline’s Boeing 777 aircraft with registration number 5N-BWI. The aircraft departed Heathrow Airport London earlier Sunday and arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at 20:41hrs, Nigerian time. It later departed from Abuja to Murtala Mohammed International airport, Lagos immediately after the disembarking of passengers in Abuja.
Air Peace Spokesperson, Stanley Olisa, expressed delight at the development, saying the airline is grateful to the Federal Government, particularly the Nigerian Embassy in London, for the choice of Air Peace. Significantly, it gave the airline the opportunity to further show its capability for long-haul flights.
“We’re delighted to have operated this flight. It unmistakably shows that Air Peace can fly anywhere in the world, given the required support of the government”, Olisa said.
This is a maiden flight of the Arline to the UK for evacuation.
Air peace came into the limelight since the COVID 19 pandemic and was featured in the long haul flight to China to bring in the COVID 19 equipment and the controversial Chinese experts. They were also the flight chattered to fly them back to China.
Recently, controversies had raged over their rights to evacuate Nigerian citizens from Canada, with the Canadian authorities favoring the Ethiopian airlines for the airlift even though many Nigerians booked their flights through Air peace.
