During Air Peace’s inaugural flight ceremony at Terminal 2 of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos on Friday night, Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, highlighted the significance of the commencement of Lagos-London flight services by Air Peace. He emphasized that this development would alleviate the pressure on the Naira in comparison to the Dollar.
Keyamo underscored the commitment of the Bola Tinubu-led government to support local operators in accessing aircraft lease arrangements, similar to what Air Peace has accomplished.
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He also reassured that with Air Peace operating on the London route, there would be no issues with trapped funds hindering the airline’s continued flight services. Additionally, Keyamo emphasized that Air Peace is a local company, and therefore, the government does not need to repatriate the sale of tickets to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The minister highlighted that by adopting this approach, Nigeria would have sufficient liquidity in terms of foreign exchange to repatriate those funds, thereby bolstering the country’s economic stability.
He said: “All the airlines that come into Nigeria, what they experience is massive repatriation of funds that puts pressure on the Naira because they have to seek for dollars, both the commercial banks and CBN. This new development eases the pressure on Naira because this is a Nigerian company that deals in naira and buys in naira. The only problem is that they still have to go abroad whenever they want to service their aircraft.
So one of my major objectives is to bring the MRO into Nigeria. That is very important. The key to unlocking this industry is to ensure that MRO comes into the country as quickly as possible. The Chinese, Arabs, and Americans are talking to us. They all want to come and do something. For now, we have a choice because everybody wants to come in and invest in Nigeria because of the new approach of governance to investors.”
On why airlines that operated the London route previously did not survive, the minister said, “The reason why previous airlines on the London Route did not survive is not because of the politics of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA). It is about access to aircraft on favourable terms.
“We are going to pray for Air Peace and pray for Allen that he can sustain this. This is because he is doing this at great expense, even at marginal profit or loss to challenge and it is going to get better.”
