Air Peace, Nigeria's largest airline, operated its first direct flight between Lagos and London Gatwick on 30 March 2024, deploying a Boeing 777-200ER registered 5N-BVE on the roughly six-hour route. The flight marked the airline's, and Nigeria's, long-awaited return to scheduled direct service to the United Kingdom after years in which Nigerian carriers had been absent from the route.
Air Peace had secured a Foreign Carrier Operator Permit from the UK Civil Aviation Authority as far back as November 2023, but chief executive Allen Onyema said the airline had been unable to begin flying because it could not obtain commercially viable slots at its first-choice airport, London Heathrow, and was ultimately forced to accept Gatwick instead.
Government Diplomacy and a Wet-Lease Deal
The launch followed weeks of diplomatic engagement by Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo, who met UK transport officials in February 2024 to press the case for direct Lagos-London flights and separately discussed a potential partnership with Norse Atlantic Airways. To bridge the gap while it prepared its own long-haul capacity, Air Peace initially operated the new route under a two-month wet-lease arrangement with Norse, which used its Boeing 787-9 aircraft to fly the service on the Nigerian carrier's behalf using Norse's own Gatwick slots, alongside Air Peace's own Boeing 777 rotations.
Air Peace said it planned to operate the route four times weekly at launch, with both airlines describing the arrangement as an initial step that could be extended into a longer-term partnership depending on how demand developed.
A Symbolic Milestone
The launch was widely covered as a milestone for Nigerian aviation, restoring a domestic carrier's presence on one of the country's most important long-haul corridors after years in which British Airways and Virgin Atlantic had operated the Lagos-London market without Nigerian competition. Within a year, Air Peace would report having carried well over 100,000 passengers on the route.
