Flight delay and cancellation have been a problem associated with Air Peace over the years that it seemed as if it is the only airline that fails to keep to its take off time.
In order to address frequent flight cancellation, the airline decided recently to adopt a very radical measure to significantly reduce the problem.
There is a nexus between an airline’s capacity and the tendency to have more flight delays and cancellations because the more flight an airline operates the more it confronts the challenges of flying, which include infrastructure limitations, including sunset airports, which are the airports in Nigeria an airline cannot fly to after 6:00 pm. There is also the challenge of inclement weather, crowded ramp, delay in fuel supply and other factors.
Air Peace currently operates about 80 flights a day, which is the highest capacity offered by a domestic airline in Nigeria. So, if 10 per cent of its flights are delayed or cancelled, it will be more than an airline which operates 20 flights a day but 30 per cent of its flights were delayed or cancelled.
For example, in the 2024 flight operations data from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), were published, which indicated that Air Peace operated 25, 232 flights that year and delayed 1, 854 flights, which is 58 per cent. In the same period, Arik Air operated 5, 265 flights and delayed 3, 134 flights, which is 69 per cent. Dana Air before it was shut down (almost half year) operated 4, 033 flights and delayed 3,081, which 73 per cent. Also, during that time United Nigeria, which sent some of its aircraft on C-check then operated 6, 093 flights, delayed 4, 290, recording 77 per cent.
From the above figures, it is obvious that despite operating the highest number of flights, Air Peace does not record the highest delays in the domestic market, going by the percentage of flights delayed. But complaints about the airline are rife because it has the highest number of aircraft deployed for service.
In a recent interview, the airline said it has taken a drastic measure to significantly curb delayed and cancelled flights. It said it kept three aircraft on standby to mitigate delays by deploying them when any of the operating aircraft suffers bird strike (which is frequent) or develops technical problem.
About two weeks ago two flights of the airline suffered bird strike in Port Harcourt and Owerri respectively and two out of the three aircraft were dispatched to continue with the flight service while the aircraft that had bird strike were grounded. The one at the Owerri airport was grounded for four days before it was ferried back to Lagos.
The Chairman and CEO of the airline, Dr. Allen Onyema, explained that keeping the aircraft on standby is a huge revenue loss to the airline because in commercial flight operations profit margin comes in trickles; so, airlines maximise their usage of their aircraft, but keeping three airworthy aircraft on standby is “a huge sacrifice.”
But the decision is paying off. The airline said that it started implementing the new strategy on May 10 and from May 12, it started recording improvement; that the airline as at last week recorded about 85 per cent on time performance, which it hopes to improve on in the coming weeks.
But in order to keep up with the new strategy, the airline strictly abides by the closure of boarding by 45 minutes to departure time. This has given rise to another complaint, as passengers complain of being left behind when they arrive at the airport at the time boarding has closed.
THISDAY visited the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, where Air Peace operates most of its domestic flight early in the morning on Monday, June 23, 2025 and witnessed cacophony of passengers protesting that they were left behind because they came “a bit later than the boarding time”.
Obviously, if an airline must keep to its departure time it must abide by the boarding closure time, especially when other flights are being programmed simultaneously and each wants to take off on time.
This explained why the exasperated spokesman of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Professor Obiora Okonwko, wondered why there were several complaints against the airline now that it decided to significantly improve its on-time departure to stem the criticism of delayed flights and doing that at huge expense of the airline in terms of revenue earnings.
“Come to think of it, we have seen a number of Nigerians who are saying, Air Peace is delaying flights, Air Peace is delaying flights. Right? And here is Air Peace saying, we don’t want to delay flights anymore; that prompted them to leave passengers who were late behind. That means they are ready to lose revenue for them to be on time. So how would you satisfy the person? When you delay flights, they blame you; when you are on time, they blame you for being on time,” Okonkwo wondered.
Although bad weather, which constitute the major cause of flight delays in Nigeria and globally may not be tamed by keeping aircraft on standby, but other causes of delay have been adequately addressed, as the airline would deploy any of the standby to take over from any distressed aircraft caused by bird strike or tech issues.
This will enable the airline to significantly improve its own time performance, as it aims to achieve over 90 per cent on-time performance (OTP) before end of the year. To make this happen, the airline received additional aircraft earlier in the week, an Embraer E190 aircraft to its fleet and in the coming weeks, it would add more aircraft to connect more destinations both in domestic, West Coast and international destinations.
The airline will reinforce its operations to Dakar, Doula, Banjul and Abidjan.
In a recent interview, Air Peace argued that whenever there is flight delay, airlines lose money; so, they cannot push for delays if not for critical safety reasons. Because when they cancel flights they lose money, passengers schedule is disrupted, which can also cost them opportunities, including loss of money.
“Over time, it was as if we were seeing Air Peace announcing delays, cancellations and all that. But let the truth be told; no airline under the sun cancels or delays flights for the fun of it because you are losing money. You know better than I do, that no airline will gain from delaying or cancelling flights. You are losing instantly. So, do you think any airline will deliberately want to cancel or delay flights? They keep talking about Air Peace. A lot of videos they post on social media about Air Peace are fake. A lot of videos out there are deliberately done to bother us. Even recently, they started recycling old videos against this airline, making them look as if they happened now.
“But this has pushed us to search for ways to mitigate this challenge because we would want our passengers to be happy. We would want them to have more confidence in the airline as dependable and reliable service provider in air travel. We now provide buffer for our flight (standby aircraft). Buffer means you do your scheduling and leave one aircraft on standby.
“Air Peace re-strategized on May 10, 2025 and the result started showing from May 12 and from that time to now (June) Air Peace has posted over 85 per cent on-time performance. Up to date, beginning from May 12th, we now decided to do something unthinkable. That strategy will hurt any airline, in terms of our finances. It will also hurt passengers who will not get to the airport early. We have left three full-blown air worthy aircraft on standby and since we did that our on-time performance improved by 85 per cent,” Onyema said.
It is hoped that in the next few months, Air Peace could be recording over 95 per cent on-time performance.
