How We Lost N3bn to Planes' Collision - Air Peace

Air Peace Airline had disclosed that it has lost over N3 billion to the recent winglet inci­dent involving two of its aircraft at the General Avia­tion Terminal (GAT) of the Murtala Muhammad Air­port, Lagos.
The Chairman of the Airline, Mr Allen Onyema, while briefing the press yes­terday at his office in Ikeja, Lagos, said that the Skyway Aviation Handling Compa­ny (SAHCOL) at the same period used their equip­ment to run into its Benin-Abuja bound aircraft at the Benin Airport, rendering the aircraft unserviceable also.

He lamented that with this, the Airline lost three aircraft within 24 hours leading to flight delays.
He apologised to its teeming customers for the inconveniences in their travel schedule.
“We apologise and in­form our teeming custom­ers that their darling airline is having a challenge. We want the media to educate them; no airline loses three aircraft in 24 hours and continues to operate.
“Last week Thursday, on April 20, we had a wing­let incident making those two aircraft unserviceable. We don’t want to play with safety so we are waiting for Boeing to come and fix it.
“These two aircraft im­plied 14 flights cancelled and we had to rearrange immediately and that led to a delay.
“But the social media misrepresented the inci­dent in their report, saying that about 200 passengers escaped death. There was no single passenger in those aircraft and it was not a col­lision.
“The following day, SAH­COL used its equipment to run into our aircraft in Be­nin Airport and this aircraft does seven to eight flights. So we had to manage to fix the problem of about 24 flights in less than 24 hours.
“We appeal to our pas­sengers that this problem has not come to stay as we are working on it. We are sorry, we at Air Peace we are saying we are sorry. It’s not in our style to bring them discomfort,” Onyema said.
However, he condemned the violent action of some passengers who were very unruly doing things he said are not done in neighbour­ing countries. “They de­stroyed our equipment, beat up our staff and stripped them naked. We need the government to protect air­lines on this, airline staff­ers are people’s spouses and siblings,” he stressed.
According to Onyema, the airline has already lost 240 flights and the loss of the three aircraft has cost Air Peace over N3 billion, stressing that to fix the wingless aircraft alone will cost $650,000 by AG Waters of London.