On Sunday, May 24, Air Peace officially commenced direct flights to Barbados, one of the 13 independent sovereign nations in the Caribbean. It was historic, not only for the organisation but also Nigeria where good news has become as scarce as hen’s teeth. Henceforth, the airline will operate a nine-hour twice-monthly scheduled flights from Lagos to Barbados via Antigua, marking the first direct air connection between West Africa and the Caribbean. This is hugely significant considering the fact that before now, traveling from West Africa to the Caribbean meant enduring exhausting, multi-stop journeys through Europe and North America, involving transit visas, layovers sometimes exceeding 20 hours, at exorbitant costs.

All these have changed by a sheer stroke of aviation genius orchestrated by one man, Allen Onyema, and his transcendental airline. A highly appreciative Barbadian government, mindful of the historical import of the occasion rolled out the red carpet to give the airline a grand welcome. At the Indigo Hotel in Barbados, high ranking government officials, including Ian Gooding-Edghill, Minister of Tourism and International Transport; Shane Archer, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for Youth and Culture, and David Commissiong, the country’s ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), were present. Gooding-Edghill was spot on when he described the new route as “a landmark occasion for Barbados, for the Caribbean and for deepening relations between the region and the African continent.”

“When Air Peace flies into Barbados, it does so carrying the weight of a relationship that both regions have been working toward,” he said, assuring his home government’s support. “We have no intention of being passive beneficiaries of your investment. We will work through our trade and investment bodies, tourism agencies, private sector and diplomatic channels to stimulate demand and ensure favourable conditions exist for this route to succeed,” he further said in clear appreciation of the fact that sustainable air transport links, aside enhancing the experience of the travelling public, opens new opportunities for tourism and trade, thereby driving regional integration and economic cooperation.

Sadly, in Nigeria, what was a historic milestone in the Caribbean was a non-event. Wayward leaders were engrossed in fraudulent primary elections even as scores of innocent school children and their teachers were herded into numerous ungoverned spaces by mindless terrorists. For a president that junkets the world allegedly in quest of foreign investors, this was an invaluable opportunity that should have been seized the same way the Barbadian government did. But that is obviously not a priority for now. On the same day of the historic flight, Air Peace expanded its fleet with an additional Boeing 737-800 Next Generation aircraft, designed to boost passenger capacity, support more efficient route deployment and strengthen schedule reliability across its expanding network within Nigeria and other parts of Africa, while offering enhanced onboard comfort. Configured with 189 Economy Class seats with a spacious cabin layout, larger overhead storage compartments, advanced avionics, modern safety systems and fuel-efficient engines, it is one of the most reliable narrow-body aircraft globally.

In Barbados, Onyema, the Air Peace boss, is a folk hero, just as he is in Brazil. He is celebrated not only by ordinary folks but the leadership of both countries.

For instance, when President Bola Tinubu paid a high-level state visit to Brazil on August 25, 2025, Onyema was there at the personal invitation of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The two-day diplomatic mission culminated in five bilateral agreements across key sectors, including agriculture and science; the most significant being the historic Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA), a collaboration between President Lula and Onyema, which designated Air Peace to operate Nigeria’s first direct commercial flights between Lagos and São Paulo. The Brazilian leader who said the direct air link would deepen geo-political, cultural, and economic ties between the two nations, noted that connecting the largest economies in Africa and Latin America was a massive step forward. Just like in the Barbados case, when it is operationalised later this year, the direct flight will reduce travel time between Nigeria and Brazil from nearly 24 hours to just over eight hours.

But this titanic aviation pact, a milestone for South-South global partnerships that will indubitably open doors to expanded trade and knowledge transfer, was not an accident. Onyema is an incredible asset to the Brazilian economy with over $1 billion worth of investments, a fact that President Lula does not take for granted. Air Peace has ordered a total of 21 Embraer jets directly from the Brazilian manufacturer, consisting of 16 E-Jets E2 (mainly the E195-E2) and five E175s, making the airline the largest operator of Embraer E-Jets in Africa. Out of these, five have already been delivered. The planes are manufactured in Brazil by Embraer, a multinational aerospace corporation, the third-largest producer of civil aircraft in the world (behind Airbus and Boeing).

Meanwhile, back home, even as the global aviation family ululates, a renewed and orchestrated campaign of calumny against the airline has become more virulent. There seems to be a deliberate attempt to demarket Africa’s most successful private airline by intentionally discouraging the flying public from patronizing it. This campaign which intensified when Air Peace launched its direct Lagos-London route on March 30, 2024 culminated last week in a dubious ranking of “top Nigerian airlines,” with ValueJet coming tops, a ranking that stretches the limits of incredulity. Ironically, those behind this mischief said the ranking was based on market presence, operational performance, passenger visibility, fleet expansion and growing regional influence. ValueJet does not measure up to Air Peace on any of these indices. As if to put a lie to this hoax, a new continental ranking of 15 airlines by Gambella Media Network has placed Air Peace as the eighth best in Africa and the highest ranked carrier in the entire West and Central African sub-region. Interestingly, the first seven – Ethiopian Airlines, Air Mauritius, RwandAir, South African Airways, EgyptAir, Royal Air Maroc and Kenya Airways – are state-owned.

Even at that, except Ethiopian Airlines which operates a fleet of over 170 modern aircraft, making it the largest airline in Africa by fleet size and destinations served, Air Peace which currently operates a fleet of over 30 aircraft, with a combined mainline and subsidiary fleet size of roughly 37 planes is bigger than Kenya Airways which currently operates an active fleet of 35 aircraft. But what is certain is that Air Peace which commenced commercial flight operations on October 24, 2014, with a modest fleet of seven aircraft is today the largest privately-owned airline in Africa. But the credibility and strength of an airline is not measured only in terms of the largeness of its fleet and operational breadth but by its safety standards. Recently, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for the world’s airlines, said Air Peace stands on equal footing with aviation giants such as British Airways, KLM and Delta Airlines, on global safety standards, having successfully attained its sixth consecutive International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification.

Making the validation, IATA’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Dr. Patrick Fatokun, said the stringent safety audit processes applied to Air Peace were the same used to assess other global aviation giants. “The standards that are given are the same as the British Airways, KLM, Delta. They are all assessed the same way… Air Peace’s presence on the IOSA registry is a testament to its unwavering dedication to safety, operational excellence, and professionalism. This milestone is not just a victory for the airline but a pride for Nigeria. It highlights that local carriers can operate at the highest international safety levels.”

Air Peace is a gem in the Nigerian aviation industry that should be jealously protected by all Nigerians. Now, that does not mean they should not be called out when they err. I once had cause to cross swords with the airline. Neither the airline nor its proprietor is infallible. But such criticisms must be constructive with the goal of making it better not with an intent to destroy. Airline business anywhere in the world is tasking. It is more so here with innumerable business headwinds. Except for Alhaji Aliko Dangote, no Nigerian entrepreneur has been able to do for Nigeria’s economy what Allen Onyema has done with Air Peace. His is even more profound because it is yielding both tangible and intangible capital for the country. He deserves praise, not vilification having achieved what Nigeria as a country could not. And let no one make any mistake about this: if Air Peace goes under, as some people seem to be wishing, Nigeria will be worse for it. It is tantamount to wishing that the Dangote Refinery, warts and all, goes bust.