Chinedu Eze
Nigeria’s major carrier, Air Peace has denied charging high fares on South Eastern routes and frowned at those from the region mounting campaign of calumny against the airline.
In a statement signed by the airline management, Air Peace said that it does not have different price regime for different parts of the country, explaining that prices of tickets are determined by the demand.
“The attention of Air Peace has been drawn to the orchestrated attacks on the airline on social media. It has become a pastime for our brothers from the South East to attack Allen Onyema and Air Peace, for their selfish ends. Air Peace does not discriminate against the South East. It is the same fare that is loaded for all the routes all over Nigeria.
“Our fares start from N23, 000, and progresses to N60,000 which is our highest Economy Class fare. For a 136-seat capacity aircraft(12 Business and 124 Economy), the fare is allocated thus: N23,000 – 10seats; N27,500 – 20 seats; N30,000 – 25seats; N33,000- 15seats, N35,000 – 15seats; N42,000 – 10 seats; N47,000- 5seats; N50,000 – 5seats, N55,000 – 5seats and N60,000 – 14seats.
“These fares are loaded into the system for all Air Peace destinations- North, East, South and West. No discrimination. If the first 10 seats of N23,000 fare finishes, the system will automatically start showing the next fare which is N27,500. If the allocated seats on this are booked, it will migrate to the next until it gets to the last 14 seats pegged at N60,000,” the statement said.
The airline also explained that as the aircraft gets more passengers, the higher fares start showing up, noting that the Eastern routes, because of traffic, get sold out faster than some places thereby showing higher fares earlier than others, adding that other destinations, though slower, would also pay the same higher fares as the aircraft gets filled up.
“It is highly mischievous of anyone to be accusing Allen Onyema and Air Peace of ethnic favouritism. It has become habitual for people to try to make themselves popular by attacking the airline. To feather their parochial interests, these propagandists say we favour the North. They published on social media a fare of N95,000 to Owerri and a fare of Kano showing N35,000 for the same date. Quite misleading.
“The N95, 000 fare is not our Economy fare but our Business fare. It is deceptive for anyone to deliberately bring out our highest Business fare for Owerri and juxtapose it against a Kano Economy fare selling at the time, thereby making the unsuspecting reader to think that the Owerri passenger is paying N95,000 for the same class of ticket which the Kano person was paying N35,000 for, ”the statement said.
Air Peace said that its fares are the cheapest in Nigeria “for our type of aircraft. Even in Christmas season, we do not increase fares. The maximum N60,000 Economy ticket is there all year. During Christmas, you fly empty planes back to Lagos from the South East, yet we keep to our all year round Economy fare of N60, 000.”
“Air Peace came on board when there was paucity of flights in the South East and provided several flights, making transportation easier for the Easterners. The airline also has in its employ over 2000 Igbo people in an industry where they were not adequately represented before our entry, ”the airline said.
