Nigeria’s leading carrier, Air Peace and six of its crew members revelled in accolades on Thursday when the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) rewarded them with the “National Carrier of Repute” and “Nigerian Crew of Repute” awards respectively for delivering flight services with exceptional efficiency.
President of NIPR, Dr. Rotimi Oladele presented the awards to the airline and its crew members during the annual conference of the institute in Umuahia, Abia State.
Air Peace, he enthused, had brought honour to Nigeria in the aviation industry and proved that the nation had the capacity to fix its challenges.
Oladele affirmed that the carrier’s on-time performance, customer service, safety and fleet maintenance reputations were unparalleled.
The NIPR boss commended Air Peace’s crew chosen for the “Nigerian Crew of Repute” award – Capt. Adesola Arasi, First Officer Violet Enahoro, Ademola Olowolade, Ann Otiede, Yemisi Beckley and Paul Ijeh – for distinguishing themselves in their engagements with members of the flying public.
He justified the choice of Air Peace and its crew for the awards, saying they were practically assessed by NIPR teams without their knowledge.
He said a total of 20 airlines were covertly assessed by the institute’s teams on board 29 flights and at the carriers’ offices. Air Peace and its crew, he said, emerged winners after securing a total of 67 percent of the votes.
Responding on behalf of Air Peace, its Corporate Communications Manager, Mr. Chris Iwarah assured that the carrier was driven by a passion to project the name of Nigeria globally through exceptional flight services.
From seven aircraft and five routes at launch in 2014, he said Air Peace had increased its fleet to 24 aircraft and taken its flight operations to 12 domestic and four regional destinations.
Iwarah said the airline was set to broaden its regional route network with the addition of Monrovia (Liberia), Lome (Togo) and Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) in the next few weeks.
He assured that the airline, which recently set a record as the first Nigerian carrier to acquire a Boeing 777 aircraft for its long-haul operations, would soon prove the mettle of the country on the global aviation scenes with the launch of its Houston, London, Guangzhou-China, Dubai, Sharjah, Mumbai and Johannesburg services.
He commended NIPR for rewarding merit, assuring that the awards would spur Air Peace and its crew to further raise the bar of service in the nation’s aviation industry.
