Six Nigerian airlines have announced a new pact, the ‘Spring Alliance’, to mutually support their operations in order to provide better services to passengers.
The carriers signed the alliance on Tuesday in Lagos.
Chairman of Air Peace and Vice-president of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Allen Onyema, stated that the Spring Alliance is for the benefit of the passengers who fly with the six airlines.
According to him: “By this alliance our passengers are protected whenever there is a problem with one airline. It is our response to the complaints of the flying public, so this alliance will enable us to satisfy them.
“But with this alliance and what we are going to be doing henceforth, the flying public will reap the benefit. For example if Air Peace has a tech issue on any of its aircraft, the passengers of Air Peace need not to be delayed, if any member of this alliance is going to the same destination, all we need to do is move the passengers over to that other airline, a member of the alliance, at no further cost to the passenger”.
Onyema stressed the alliance represents a revolution in Nigeria’s aviation sector, while urging other airlines to tap into the benefits offered by joining it.
He said that the Spring Alliance is not limited to Nigerian airlines alone s other African airlines may wish to join, adding that the alliance originated from Nigeria but is open to the world.
The Managing Director, Aero Contractors, Capt. Abdullahi Mahmood, noted that the formation of the Spring Alliance is a historic move, one that prioritises the satisfaction of the passenger.
“History has been made here today in Nigeria, and this is the first time something like this is happening in Nigeria’s aviation industry. You can see that the airline operators are fully committed to making sure that our passengers are satisfied.
”LIke we say, for every challenge, you see an opportunity and probably this is the time that we have seen an opportunity whereby the airlines can come together, work together and have a healthy competition whereby at the end of the day, we make our passengers happy and safe,” he said.
The CEO of United Nigeria Airline, Obiora Okonkwo, said the alliance would revolutionise flight services for the flying public, as passenger satisfaction is the major objective behind the formation of the alliance.
According to Okonkwo, “There’s no doubt that Nigerian airlines are going through some situations and part of the ways to react to this is to have the passengers in mind. It is simply thinking out-of-the-box. We are not reinventing the wheel, we are just adopting what we have seen that has worked in other places, and it will surely work in Nigeria so that the passengers going to the airport are more guaranteed that they will fly.”
