Air Peace lost $2m to Tunisian firm, says Allen Onyema

Allen Onyema, chief executive officer of Air Peace, says the airline lost $2 million to a Tunisia-based leasing company but chose not to pursue legal action to safeguard Nigeria’s reputation in the global aviation industry.

Speaking on Thursday at the 29th annual conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents in Lagos, Onyema said the incident happened when the company approached Air Peace to buy aircraft parts and requested $2 million.

“A foreign company defrauded us of $2 million. They told us they wanted to buy aircraft parts and needed a sum of $2 million.

“If I had stopped them from taking the money, Nigeria would have been further blacklisted. What you would be hearing is that Nigerian airlines are unreliable.

“For the sake of the aviation industry, I decided not to stop this transaction. The company took our money and never came back. They stole our $2 million.

“The Nigerian government got in touch with them. They said it was a private business matter and they would see what they could do, and they ran away with that $2 million,” he said.

Onyema said at the time, Nigeria was already unofficially blacklisted for contract breaches linked to the actions of some local airlines. He added that pursuing the case could have worsened the situation for other carriers.

He explained that if Air Peace had seized the funds, the company risked losing access to dry-lease opportunities, a move that could have compounded the challenges facing the aviation sector.

The Air Peace chief also spoke on the industry’s funding constraints, noting that banks have become increasingly reluctant to lend to airlines due to defaults and a lack of trust.

“In Nigeria, funding is very expensive with a 35 percent interest rate and it’s not even available to everybody. People are asked to also bring collateral that is almost impossible to get. We need the banks but the conditions being imposed are very far from being helpful.

“The Nigerian aviation sector has started being a little bit more liberal, but you need to earn it,” he said.

Onyema urged the government to create a special foreign exchange window for airlines through the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Bank of Industry.