Air Peace, on Wednesday, in a show of strength and readiness to resume operations, filled the Nigerian airspace with several of its fleets of aircraft in what was described as shakedown flights.
This is coming ahead of resumption of domestic flight operations in the country.
The airline has a mixed fleet of 25 aircraft which includes three wide body aircraft, the Boeing 777s.
The shakedown flight in aviation is like a test flight preparatory to resumption of flights by an airline.
As part of preparation, Air Peace deployed all its aircraft to the skies, flying to Abuja, Port Harcourt and back to Lagos without passengers.
These flights were aimed at ensuring that the aircraft are in tip-top condition, having been grounded for close to three months though they have been under very strict storage maintenance.
The spokesperson of the airline, Stanley Olisa, who disclosed this to journalists on Thursday, said the shakedown flights were part of the measures the airline has developed to guarantee the safety of both passengers and crew when operations resume.
He noted that the aircraft have been in storage mode for a couple of months and extensive maintenance checks have been carried out to keep them up to the required standards.
He said: “Within this period of flight ban, we have ramped up technical maintenance of all our aircraft, scaled up cabin refresh and carried out thorough disinfection to ensure they remain fit for the skies when the authorities flag off operations.”
He added that the aircraft are now being brought out of storage and the pilots have been testing them, stressing that all pilots and flight attendants have been retrained in line with NCAA directives.
On the airline’s readiness to resume regular flights, he stated: “As you know, we have been operating ‘special flights’ to local and international destinations, and we have more of such flights in the works.
“This accentuates our preparedness for operation restart as our pilots, cabin crew and engineers have been hands-on and are very current.
“So, we are hundred percent ready to resume”.
Air Peace has been operating charter and evacuation flights to various international destinations even as the flight ban persists.
It would be recalled that in April, the airline delivered the Federal Government of Nigeria’s medical supplies from Turkey and China to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has also operated several evacuation flights to India, Israel and China in the last two months.
