The Chairman of Nigerian indigenous carrier, Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema, has decried what he called “devilish conspiracy and unspoken alliance” by foreign carriers operating the Nigeria-UK route.
He claimed that they are allegedly conniving to send Air Peace out of international operations by crashing airfares on the route.
He disclosed this on Tuesday while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
“If they take out Air Peace prematurely, this country will pay dearly for it, 10 times over, billions will be lost, there will be another heavy strain on the naira,” he said.
He said foreign airlines operating the route “are fighting back” after his airlines’ maiden flight to London.
He added that his airlines are being “deliberately frustrated in all ways” when revealing how difficult ground handling and space allocation has been at Gatwick Airport in the past few days.
“It’s a very devilish conspiracy,” said Onyema.
“All of a sudden, (foreign) airlines are underpricing, below the cost, it’s not up to one month, an airline was advertising $100, another one $305, $350.
“Fill up the entire aircraft and carry people on the wings, it’s not even enough to buy your fuel. So, why are they doing that? Their governments are supporting them because Nigeria has been a cash cow for everybody.
“Their governments are supporting them to do this and take Air Peace out. The idea is to take Air Peace out and the moment they succeed in taking Air Peace out, Nigerians will pay 20 times over again,” he said.
Onyema, therefore, invited other Nigerian airlines to join the Nigeria-UK route to break the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by foreign carriers operating into the four major gateway airports of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.
“I invite other Nigerian airlines to join the fray, let them come, let all of us do international operations. Yes, international aeropolitics is very dirty but somebody must pay the price,” he said.
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