[AMcWhirter]

This is a surprise.

News today that Norse Atlantic will operate four flights a week London Gatwick to Lagos on behalf of Nigeria’s Air Peace.

As I have previously noted on Forum, Norse will be operating fewer transatlantic flights from Gatwick in summer 2024.

So Norse will now be using some of these slots for the flights it will operate for Air Peace.

The deal starts in April and will run for an initial period of two months and it can be extended.

Flyairpeace.com now lists the London Gatwick to Lagos route on its website but no bookings are possible at time of writing.

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BackOfThePlane

[DavidSmith2]

Interesting development. Air Peace have quite an extensive network in West Africa, including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and The Gambia. If connections are reasonable through Lagos, then I imagine flight tickets could be considerably cheaper than the existing European carriers to the region (BA, Air France, KLM, Brussels Air). It will be interesting to see if they can make a go of it. And if it has any impact on the other carriers’ pricing.

[cwoodward]

Any port in a storm it would appear.

[BackOfThePlane]

Even allowing for potential extensions, a 2 month agreement does seem very short. I assume the plan is for Air Peace to operate their own aircraft on the route after that.

From the little I have seen of them (on YouTube) I wouldn’t be rushing to fly with them.

[SimonS1]

Let’s hope Norse have a way of getting paid. I believe Emirates pulled their Nigeria routes due to lack of FX and inability to get money from ticket sales out of the country.

[Rferguson2]

What I find most significant is that Norse is effectively dipping its toes into the Wet Lease market with this route.

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LetsFlyNow

[MarkivJ]

Air Peace has started 3x weekly flights LOS – Mumbai operating a 777, and I’m told flights are constantly overbooked. I suspect the EK fiasco has spilt over into heavy non-stop demand between the 2 countries.

[LetsFlyNow]

I wonder if this is the re-evaluation / new direction the airline talked about not long ago.

[AMcWhirter]

This is naturally big news in Nigeria.

Airpeace CEO Dr Allen Onyema was interviewed by local TV.

It’s a long interview and I listened to the first 12 mins.

But Dr Onyema explained that Airpeace’s first choice was LHR but that wasn’t possible and his airline was given LTN or STN which did not appeal.

LGW was not the first choice and initially the airport offered ad hoc slots (meaning different slot times on different days of the week).

The CEO said Airpeace would be flying daily with 787s.

He made no mention of the fact that flights would be leased from Norse Air.

Again no schedules are currently displayed on the carrier’s website although LGW-Lagos-LGW is shown.

It could be that flight times are not yet finally. The CEO talked about Airpeace departing Lagos at 03:30 (although I may have misheard).

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LetsFlyNow, DavidSmith2

[BackOfThePlane]

It does seem very late in the day to not yet be selling seats for a flight launching in a little over a month…..with only a 2 month Norse contract.

[LetsFlyNow]

In September 2023 the CEO was very vocal about getting LHR slots “Or nothing”. I hope it’s ok that i post the link to an interview he gave .

I have to say that i’ve been rather very positively surprised with this airline. Not long ago it looked like it’d be the next Baltia Air or one of those start ups that were only on paper. Well done.

Air Peace Rejects UK Govt’s Offer To Fly To Gatwick, Insists On Heathrow Airport

[Mark]

With Hugs demand from Lagos
Passengers will happily jump on this opportunity to fly this route.
Word of mouth will be the best advertising on this “new” route!

Air Peace would do well to allow Norse to run this route for them.

[AMcWhirter]

Just an hour or so ago and Air Peace tweeted the following:

News Flash: Our London flight schedules are now live on our website with unbeatable fares and a special 15% discount for Nigerians studying in the UK.

Hurry now to https://t.co/OgBH3lj1pr to book your flights. pic.twitter.com/dwODRzVvL5

— Air Peace (@flyairpeace) February 28, 2024

[Rferguson2]

Let’s hope this Air Peace deal helps Norse out ££$$

Norse have just released their 2023 full year results and they are not good. A net loss of US$169m on revenue of US$439m.

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Johnnyg, AMcWhirter, BackOfThePlane

[BackOfThePlane]

Ouch…

[Author]

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