Air Peace Lagos-Gatwick Sealed.
Air Peace has finally sealed the deal to have a place at the dining table of the London-Lagos route, instead of settling for crumbs from the table as domestic off-loader of international passengers.
It has signed an aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance (ACMI) agreement with Norway’s Norse Atlantic to operate the route on behalf of Air Peace. So if you see oyibo Captain, second officers, and about seven to eight air hostesses, just relax, na Air Peace dem be. I hope they will serve correct jollof rice with Nigerian bottom pot tiny tiny culinary obstacles.
The initial agreement would last two months starting from April with plans to extend it into a longer term agreement. It would operate four flights a week between London Gatwick Airport (LGW) and Lagos Murtala Mohammed Airport (LOS) on behalf of Air Peace.
The Norway-based airline will be using Air Peace’s LGW slots to operate the route with its Boeing 787 aircraft, offering both an opportunity to turn the initial two-month charter operation into a long-term agreement.
I think the equipment Norse Atlantic would deploy on the route would be dictated by passenger volume. If they did influence many of the frequent fliers of that route to shunt from British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, then they may get enough passengers to fill a Boeing 787-10 which comfortably takes about 336 passengers to compete with the two British airlines that deploy their Airbus A330, A350-1000, and Boeing 787-10 aircraft between the two cities.
However, a starting point should be a Boeing 787-8 that takes about 248 passengers. I hope Air Peace can extend its agreement with Norse Atlantic for connecting passengers to other cities that Norse plies such as New York, Los Angeles, Washington Dulles, Florida, Miami, Frankfurt, Rome, San Francisco and Boston.
It would serve as onward off-takers for non British destination passengers. With such arrangement, you can fly to say San Francisco from Lagos via Gatwick, offering passengers different choices, and also ticket rates.
With its fairly good coverage of the West African sub-regional routes, Air Peace should start marketing connecting flight tickets to London-Gatwick for its passengers say in Freetown, Accra, Cotonou, Doula, Banjul, Abidjan, and Dakar among others to connect to London Gatwick via Lagos.
With that, their passengers can buy a single ticket from their departure city that would interconnect at Lagos, and straight to London. It all requires a little price flexibility, and this would equally force FAAN to upgrade facilities at MMIA to meet international standards for inter-connectivity.
Thinking about this Norwegian airline and its name Norse Atlantic reminds me of the mythology of the Scandinavians. Odin was the supreme deity of Norse mythology and the greatest among the Norse gods he was also the All-Father of the Aesir.
Odin was the awe-inspiring ruler of Asgard, who was on an unrelenting quest for knowledge with his two ravens, two wolves, and the Valkyries.
Well, your peace is the goal.
