Air Peace Limited on Wednesday June 18, 2025 announced that it has been licensed for standalone carbon making it the only Nigeria airline in this category as well as boosting its maintenance culture.
The license underscores the airline’s commitment to robust maintenance culture and safety standards as the Chairman of the airline, Dr. Allen Onyema, at a press conference on Wednesday explained the stringent processes taken to ensure the aircraft in the fleet perform optimally.
In about 10 years of its flight operations it has remained the largest airline in Nigeria, committing to a safety culture of regular and scheduled maintenance of its aircraft at the best maintenance organisations in the world.
According to Onyema, acquisition of aircraft is the least of a challenge to an operator but maintenance to keep the aircraft in the fleet serviceable is a hard job. However, he declared, “our maintenance is topnotch and we go for the best maintenance operations in the world, no matter the cost”.
Maintenance by Top Maintenance Organisations
“Air Peace is being maintained by one of the best maintenance organisations in the world, the Israeli Aerospace Industries. Yes, they are here 24 hours. They manufacture for Boeing. They manufacture for GulfStream and they don’t just work for anybody.
“It’s costing us a lot. They are the most expensive in the world, but they are the best. Do you know that we have multiple services but we can decide to deploy only one plane for the next two months and nothing happens. It will be flying back to back, back to back. That is it, I give it to God. When God brought the kind of facility, he made us to afford that kind of facility.
“It’s not easy. So, our maintenance is top-notch. When it comes to our Embraier aircraft, we brought the manufacturers themselves here. They were here for our E2s. So, when it comes to maintenance, buying aircraft is the easiest thing but maintenance is the hardest.
“Let me tell you, you can buy an aircraft for $500,000. You can even buy a plane for about $45,000. You can buy one for yourself; it becomes your private get. It carries you to Abuja, maybe two hours, three hours, and you reach Abuja. Now, to maintain it, that same aircraft you bought for $45,000 may cost you over a million dollars to keep in the skies.
“So, it’s not just going into the airline business. You need to prepare for maintenance. Every aircraft, no matter the age, is as good as its maintenance. Brand-new planes also; if you fail to do what you are supposed to do, it will disappoint you. In those days, before we started buying brand-new planes, when I complained, people would say, oh, it’s because you bought a used plane.
“Now, we ordered 16 brand-new E2-5 aircraft. We’ve got 10 brand-new Boeing 737 MAX entering from next year. So, when I say these things, people should believe me because I have the best of both worlds; a brand-new and used world. Every aircraft is as good as its maintenance. You have to have more chests to run aviation.
“It’s not a child’s play. It’s not something you say, oh, I see one plane; they sell it for $5million or $10 million. And your boss has $10million, you go and buy it.
“You might need another $80 million dollars to continue keeping that plane in the sky. Our E2, one of the engines cost us about $12.6 million; one engine. So our maintenance is top-notch in Air Peace. Our maintenance is fantastic”.
As a further credence to Air Peace top-notch maintenance, Onyema announced that the airline has been given its standalone carbon making it the first airline in Nigeria to be licensed for carbon.
Stating that carbon is important in maintenance, he said: “But I want to tell you something. Air Peace has been giving carbon licenses in Nigeria. I don’t know if you know what carbon is. We are the first commercial airline to have our own carbon now in Nigeria. We are the first. So please tell the world we have our own carbon.
“You know, before, all Nigerian airlines do is to go abroad to source their own carbon. And carbon is very important for maintenance because you know it attracts your maintenance value and everything. The engineer on the line is maintaining what carbon content produces for them to do. So if it produces wrongly, you are doomed.
“So Air Peace has been licensed. We have had a standalone carbon since the beginning of this year”.
Spare Parts Support
Continuing, Onyema disclosed that the airline has spare parts support from a company in the UK. He explained the airline signed for spare parts support over five years because sometimes you lose your spare parts.
“It’s like insurance. They come here. We have that arrangement with Embraer too. We signed it with Embraer.
“So anything that happens, if the part is not in the store, you call them, they will send it because there is a particular amount we pay. It’s expensive, we pay every month. It’s like insurance because they may not agree to give it to others but they give it to Air Peace. So these are the things that stand us out”, he explained.
Partnership with OEM
The airline operator also disclosed that Air Peace has partnerships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like Boeing, Embraer, Frank & Whitney, manufacturers of engines. “We have partnerships with them. And that’s why we keep on serving people, in some cases selflessly”.
Engine Monitoring Programme
In addition, he assured Air Peace has Engine Monitoring Programme for its aircraft; “so if the aircraft is flying and there’s any problem it’ll signal you. So if you’re flying Air Peace go to sleep”.