Dr Allen Onyema, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO, Air Peace Airlines, at the 2025 LAAC annual lecture- 7th August
The lack of seamless connectivity at all international airports has particularly affected the ability of domestic carriers to integrate regional routes into global connections.
That gross inadequacy of a proper hub also negatively impacted the revenue the government should have generated if adequate infrastructure for hub service were available at least in one of Nigeria’s international airports.
Hence, Dr Allen Onyema, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO, Air Peace airlines, who made the above submission, commended the government’s resolve to take the bull by its horns, through the planned total overhaul of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.
Onyema said Nigeria’s aviation sector is poised for a major turnaround as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, push forward with ambitious plans to address decades-old airport infrastructure challenges.
Speaking at the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) 29th Annual Conference in Lagos, Air Peace Chairman described inadequate airport infrastructure as one of the most pressing barriers to the growth and profitability of Nigerian airlines.
He noted that the absence of proper transit facilities at key airports has long hindered the country’s ability to function as a true regional hub, thus costing airlines fortune, and increase travel expense to passengers and loss of revenue to the airports.
Airlines operating in West and Central Africa, he explained, lose a competitive edge due to the hassles in connecting passengers who are subjected to immigration clearance, customs checks, and recheck of baggage merely for the sake of transit through Nigeria, a process that is a disincentive to use our airports while smaller African countries are beating us to that plum hub prospect.
Onyema noted that, the lack of seamless connectivity has particularly affected the ability of domestic carriers to integrate regional routes into global connections.
He expressed confidence in the administration’s commitment, noting that with sustained focus, the country could, within two years, possess the infrastructure needed to compete with Africa’s leading aviation hubs.
He emphasised that such infrastructure upgrades act as a form of indirect financing for airlines byreducing operational inefficiencies, cutting avoidable costs, and creating conditions for sustainable expansion.
He noted that, with the right facilities in place, Nigerian carriers could match the success of leading African airlines within the next decade.
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