Air Peace all-female flight gets rousing ovation in Lagos, Abuja, Owerri

Jaiyeorie July 11, 2018

Passengers, government officials and aviation regulators celebrated Air Peace’s first all-female crew comprising Capt. Sinmisola Ajibola, Senior First Officer Quincy Owen, SEP Instructor Rosemary Uagbor, Cabin Executive Chidimma Chimezie and Cabin Executive Opakirite George in Lagos, Abuja and Owerri.
The female flight, which left Murtala Muhammed airport, Lagos, was operated a few days after Air Peace produced its first female captain Sinmisola Ajibola. The flights, said the airline, were in honor of Sinmisola, to promote gender equality in the national aeronautics industry and to project the Nigerian women as capable of being high among their homologous men and women throughout the world The Boeing 737-300 aircraft with Captain Simisola at the head and co-piloted by Quincylanded Senior Senior Officer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at 3.29 a.m. to a spectacular water greeting by the men of the Fire Service of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria and a surprising welcome to passengers, government officials, aviation regulators and other well-offs.
From Abuja, the aircraft flewinto the Sam Mbakwe Cargo Airport, Owerri and touched down at 6.00 p.m., receiving another plume of water salute and warm welcome from passengers, airport workers and well-wishers.
Other females involved in the operations were B1 Engineer, Justina Etim, who signed out the aircraft in Lagos and dispatchers Chisom Onyeakposi and Olubukola Olajiga. Ladi Amadu and Loretta Ekeh dispatched the flight in Abuja and Owerri respectively.
Speaking at a brief welcome ceremony for the flight crew in Abuja, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema said over 20 key positions in the airline, including those of the vice chairman, chief operating officer and chief of finance and administration, were occupied by women he insisted had demonstrated excellent capacity to deliver on their tasks.
The airline, he said, had employed about 2,000 workers since it commenced operations almost four years ago.About 1,500 of the employees, he confirmed, were women.
“Air Peace is an airline run by women. We are very proud of giving women opportunities to excel because we believe that there is nothing that men can do women cannot do.We want to encourage our female children that they should aspire to be whatever they want to be by emulating what our female flight and cabin crew members have done today,’’ Onyema said.
He commended the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for its support for domestic airlines.He hailed the president for the recent removal of Value Added Tax on transportation and waivers granted on importation of aircraft spares.
For his part, Minister of State for Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika, praised Air Peace for joining the league of airlines that had operated flights with only women in charge of the cockpit, cabin, engineering and dispatch.
The minister, who was represented by the Director of Security and Technical Policy of the Ministry of Transport, Capt. Alkali Claim said the feat had shown that the airline was friendly to the genre. Hecon confirmed that the flight of the Air Peace family was the first time that a Nigerian airline was deploying a high-capacity aircraft such as the Boeing 737 with only the Nigerians in charge. "Air Peace has had a huge impact on industry and we, as regulators, and the ministry will continue to create an enabling environment for the airline and other national companies to prosper. Today's event is a further proof of security of our airspace and we continue working with airlines to make it safer, "said Sirika. The airline also won plans from the Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Captain Muhtar Usman and managing director of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, Mr. Saleh Dunoma. Usman and Dunoma, represented by Mr. Abiodun Adeyemi and the manager of the international airport Nnamdi Azikiwe, Abuja, Mahmud Sani, respectively, said they were proud of the major milestones that the carrier had registered since the scheduled flight operations began.

Capt. Sinmisola thanked Air Peace for giving them the opportunity to make the historic flight, adding that the Nigerians should get used to having women in the cabin. The U.S. trained pilot, who won the applause of the passengers after each of the four disembarkations he made cleverly, urged the Nigerian girls to embrace their dreams without fear of intimidating their male counterparts. ...

“There are times we are boarding and the men will see me in the cockpit and they will behave like: ‘Is it a female flying us? Are we safe? And we laugh about it, because it is 2018.We expect people to be conversant with having females in their cockpits. But I guess we will give them a little more time to understand that what the men can do, we equally can do,” she said.

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