Air Peace, Arik, four other airlines sign alliance

Six Nigerian airlines on Tuesday signed an alliance tagged ‘Spring Alliance’ to mutually support each other’s operations.

The airlines which signed the ‘Spring Alliance’ are Air Peace, Azman Air, United Nigeria Airline, Arik Air, Aero Contractors and Max Air.

Air Peace Chairman Allen Onyema who is also the Vice president of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), said the alliance is meant to help the six airlines satisfy the flying public

“By this alliance our passengers are protected whenever there is a problem with one airline. It is our response to the complaints of the flying public, so this alliance will enable us to satisfy them.

“But with this alliance and what we are going to be doing henceforth, the flying public will reap the benefit. For example if Air Peace has a tech issue on any of its aircraft, the passengers of Air Peace need not to be delayed, if any member of this alliance is going to the same destination, all we need to do is move the passengers over to that other airline, a member of the alliance, at no further cost to the passenger,” Onyema said.

He also added that any airline in the country and other African countries willing to join the alliance are also free to come along.

The Managing Director, Aero Contractors, Capt. Abdullahi Mahmood, said, “History has been made here today in Nigeria, and this is the first time something like this is happening in Nigeria’s aviation industry. You can see that the airline operators are fully committed to making sure that our passengers are satisfied.

“LIke we say, for every challenge, you see an opportunity and probably this is the time that we have seen an opportunity whereby the airlines can come together, work together and have a healthy competition whereby at the end of the day, we make our passengers happy and safe,” he said.

“There’s no doubt that Nigerian airlines are going through some situations and part of the ways to react to this is to have the passengers in mind. It is simply thinking out-of-the-box. We are not reinventing the wheel, we are just adopting what we have seen that has worked in other places, and it will surely work in Nigeria so that the passengers going to the airport are more guaranteed that they will fly,” The CEO of United Nigeria Airline, Obiora Okonkwo also added.