Nigeria’s major carrier, Air Peace, has evacuated 301 Chinese from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, China’s most populous, commercial city.
It was learnt that the evacuation by the Chinese government took off about 10: 00 pm Nigerian time on Thursday and arrived at about 1:15 pm Nigerian time on Friday.
The Nigeria carrier was also the airline that evacuated Israelis living in Nigeria late March and has been contacted by other countries for evacuation operations.
Stanley Olisa, spokesperson of the airline while speaking with newsmen confirmed the landing of the flight adding that Air Peace on Thursday, May 28, 2020, operated its second flight to China as “we evacuated 301 Chinese nationals back to their country. The flight departed the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos at exactly 22:05hrs to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, China. Countries have been contacting us to evacuate their citizens.”
Air Peace said it deployed its Boeing 777 aircraft with the registration number 5N-BWI for the evacuation exercise.
The Regional Airport Manager, South West, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs Victoria Shin-Aba said the flight: P47807 pushed back from the Echo terminal of MMIA at 21:40hrs with 325 souls on board – 301 Chinese evacuees and 24 crewmembers.
She explained that all relevant government agencies like FAAN, Nigeria Immigration Service, Port Health Services officials and others were fully on ground to the success of the evacuation exercise.
Meanwhile, the airline is slated to carry out more evacuation operations for other nationals living in Nigeria, as the airline and other domestic operators gear up to resume scheduled flight operations soon.
