In early May 2023 Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne announced that Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, is set to acquire a 70 per cent stake in LIAT 2020.
Air Peace was founded in 2013 by Nigerian lawyer and businessman Allen Onyema, with its head office in Ikeja, Lagos State.
The latest announcement followed a visit to Nigeria on April 28 by Antigua and Barbuda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chet Greene, during which he met his Nigerian counterpart Geoffrey Onyeama and Air Peace CEO Allen Onyema.
In July 2020 LIAT (1974) went into bankruptcy and court-appointed administration. The government of Antigua and Barbuda, as the largest shareholder government, added business rehabilitation provisions to its Companies Act and incorporated a new company, LIAT 2020 Ltd.
In February 2023, on the initiative of PM Browne, the heads of Caricom met in St Lucia to discuss proposals for regional participation in LIAT 2020. The discussions which centred on capital funding, routes and governance, evoked a less than lukewarm response from the heads and ended without a consensus on the way forward.
At a post-Cabinet news briefing to report back on Browne’s meeting with his fellow Caricom heads, Antigua and Barbuda’s Information Minister Melford Nicholas said the future of LIAT 2020 remains in limbo, as Caribbean governments remain apprehensive about setting up the new entity. Nicholas also cited “a significant degree of reticence within other Caribbean member states to embrace LIAT 2020.”
In April 2023, Nicholas said, “The public must be aware that there are hostile attempts to reprise from Antigua the central role that LIAT has played in our economy and as a regional air carrier. LIAT did not just fall out of the sky during covid19; there were purposive efforts made to weaken the position of LIAT operating from a hub in Antigua and to re-establish the hub in the southern part of the Caribbean,”
Nicholas pointed the finger at Barbados, one of the shareholders of LIAT, as the main force slowing down the airline’s revival.
LIAT 2020 is expected to commence operations after the grant of its air operators certificate (AOC) by the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority (ECCAA). Air Peace’s ownership of 70 per cent of LIAT 2020 poses certain regulatory challenges for the grant of an AOC and designation under the Caricom MASA. Under Section 18 of Antigua and Barbuda’s Civil Aviation Act 2003, only citizens or an entity majority-owned by citizens of Antigua and Barbuda can quality for an AOC.
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The Browne administration may have granted Allen Onyema, the founder and chairman of Air Peace, Antigua and Barbuda citizenship under its Citizenship by Investment Programme.
Onyema is publicly referred to as the founder, chairman and CEO of Air Peace. However, the extent of his ownership and shareholding in Air Peace remains unknown. If Onyema is a minority shareholder of Air Peace, its 70 per cent ownership of LIAT 2020 would be intensely scr
