Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
- Says GCAA told airline not to bring its wide bodied aircraft
AIR Peace has reacted to the November 10, 2021 letter written to Minister of Aviation,Hadi Sirika by the UAE Minister of Economy who also doubles as the Chairman of their GCAA and has described as misinformed, the position of UAE, especially as it concerns the airline.
A letter signed by the Chief Operating Officer of the airline, Oluwatoyin Olajide stated categorically that Air Peace has never operated flights into Duvai (DXB) Airport as insinuated by the GCAA Minister of Economy, Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri.
According to Air Peace, that information that the Airline flew to Dubai which has been made viral is untrue as the airline has only ever operated to Sharjah Airport
The letter read in part, “…we take very serious exception to that letter. We believe that the Minister and the Chairman of the Board of the GCAA may have been misinformed of the true position of the issues in discourse as no one in such an exalted position and office would deliberately push out such untrue statement.
“He has our respects, but his letter has misinformed the public about the real facts against us. We do not see what wrong Air Peace has done in this whole saga. We are the ones being wronged and now we are being attacked from a quarter we least expected. Facts don’t lie. In aviation, there are things one cannot lie about.
“Operating into and out of an airport is one of them. When did such flight operations occur? Which slot did we operate? For an airline to conduct scheduled operations into and out of an airport, there are agreements signed with several parties, executed, and implemented.
“There is need for the authority to provide the Ground Handling Company that handled the scheduled operations in Dubai Airport (DXB) for Air Peace. Air Peace has only operated flights into Sharjah Airport alone.
The airline continued,”Sir, Air Peace has never been given slots at the Dubai International Airport. Slot availability was used to deny us operating from that popular airport as it was our first choice. It was the politics of slot unavailability that did not allow us to operate into Dubai Airport directly. The lack of flight slot angle forced us to approach the Sharjah Airport as a last resort.
“We were welcomed by the government and people of Sharjah. While we were denied slots in their most important airport, the Dubai Airport, Emirates has always enjoyed red carpet treatment in Nigeria where they were given our most important airports- Lagos and Abuja where they operate a total of 21 flights weekly! We only asked for three flights weekly at the Sharjah Airport and we got same and started operations on the 5th of July, 2019 until Covid-19 lock-downs in 2020.
“Contrary to the letter, Air Peace never ceased operating from Sharjah International Airport since we started in July 2019. We only stopped when every other airline was forced to stop normal scheduled flight operations as a result of the Covid-19 lockdowns that permitted only evacuation flights.
” We did several evacuation flights out of Sharjah. So, we never left Sharjah Airport nor did we at any time “shifted” and operated out of DXB (Dubai Airport). The letter deliberately painted us as unserious while at the same time, suggesting that we look for other airports in the country to operate from.
“After the restriction of scheduled flight operations between UAE and Nigeria was lifted towards the last week in November 2021, we approached the Sharjah Airport and GCAA with a request to allow us to operate a charter into the UAE on December 01, 2021. To our surprise and, despite the lifting of the ban on flight operations between both countries, they refused. They said they would not allow charter but scheduled flight operations.
“However, we then, in obedience to their demand, announced resumption of scheduled operations beginning from that date and we opened our sales to the public. Three days to departure, they were yet to approve the flight. They came back 48hours to our expected departure to UAE denying us slot to operate the flight. When we pressed on, they told us that they would accept us only if we did not bring a wide body aircraft but a small one. We had 250 passengers to transport and using a small aircraft as they suggested was impossible. “
