Allen Onyema's Air Peace wins seven Nigerian Aviation awards, keeps West Africa sub-regional title

Air Peace, the Nigerian carrier founded by aviation mogul Allen Onyema, was the biggest winner at the 2026 Nigerian Aviation Awards, sweeping seven honors across the industry's top categories and retaining its position as West Africa's leading sub-regional airline.

The awards, handed out at the NIGAV 2026 ceremony, saw Onyema himself named Airline Executive Chief of the Year, while Air Peace took Nigerian Commercial Airline of the Year and held on to the Best West Africa Sub-Regional Airline of the Year title, a crown it has defended in successive editions of the industry event. The carrier also took Best Air Travel Mobile App of the Year, Best Airport Lounge of the Year and Pilot of the Year in the male category, while Alice Magazine, the Air Peace in-flight publication named after vice chairman Alice Onyema, won Best In-flight Magazine.

The seven-award haul lands in a year of heavy expansion for the airline. Onyema announced this month that Air Peace will begin direct London Gatwick and London Heathrow flights from Ogun State's newly commissioned Gateway International Airport this summer using its Boeing 777 fleet, adding a second international departure point for Nigeria beyond Lagos and Abuja. The Gateway plan followed a March multi-year global distribution agreement with Travelport that connected Air Peace inventory to travel agencies in 180 countries through the Travelport Plus platform.

Onyema founded Air Peace in 2013 and has built the carrier into the largest airline in West Africa by fleet size and the sixth-largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The carrier operates more than 30 aircraft including Boeing 737s, Boeing 777s and Embraer jets, with eight more on order that will bring the fleet to 40. It serves 20 destinations, covering 19 cities in Nigeria and 11 cities across nine other countries including the United Kingdom, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Benin and Guinea, with long-haul routes to London, São Paulo and Guangzhou.

The NIGAV sweep also arrives against a more complicated domestic backdrop for Onyema personally. Last month, Air Peace publicly rejected reports alleging that Lagos State had filed a tax evasion lawsuit against Onyema and vice chairman Alice Onyema, describing the claims as inaccurate after widespread coverage of a disputed 94 million naira personal income tax matter. The airline said neither executive had been served with any such lawsuit.

Beyond the fleet and route expansion, Air Peace broke ground in September on a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, a 34,000-square-meter site that Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo called a national treasure. The complex, which Onyema says will generate more than 50,000 direct and indirect jobs, is being built by Morgan Omonitan & Abe with technical support from Brazilian planemaker Embraer and will be able to service a Boeing 777 alongside five other aircraft when completed.

Onyema has used his public platform consistently to campaign for stronger government support for Nigerian carriers, arguing that excessive fiscal and regulatory burdens translate directly into higher ticket prices and weaker airline sustainability. He told industry stakeholders in September that Nigerian carriers had spent more than $180 billion on overseas maintenance and spare parts over the past year, a figure he said the new Lagos MRO would help reduce. NIGAV 2026 marks the latest in a steady run of industry honors for the Air Peace founder, whose airline has now defended the West Africa sub-regional title across multiple editions of the Nigerian aviation awards calendar.