Air Peace, one of Nigeria’s commercial airlines, has bagged the Balafon Award for “Best Airline of the Year in West Africa 2018”.

The airline was presented with the award at the opening session of the 4th Accra Weizo in Accra, Ghana on Friday.

The organiser of the event and publisher of ATQ News, Ikechi Uko, said that the airline emerged winner of the Balafon Award, which was instituted to recognise individuals and organisations who have distinguished themselves in aviation, travel and tourism in West Africa, because of the efficiency it had brought to bear on its regional operations.

Uko said: “This award recognises your airline as the Best Airline of the Year in West Africa 2018 for your outstanding activities in sustaining functional and efficient operations with expansions in West Africa, thereby adding value to the aviation and travel industry as your airlines continues to thrive in becoming a dominant face across West Africa.

“With growing routes in several countries in West Africa, Air Peace Airlines is playing a significant role in not only driving the aviation, travel and tourism agenda of your organisation and country and catalysing the growth of tourism in the sub-region, but also helping forge ties between countries in West Africa and Africa with a view to enhancing regional tourism.”

Speaking after receiving the award, the airline’s Corporate Communications Manager, Chris Iwarah said the carrier was pleased that its intervention in fixing the challenges of air travel on the West Coast of Africa was yielding desired results.

He hinted that the carrier would deepen air connectivity in West Africa by launching its Monrovia service and linking it with its Accra, Abuja and Lagos operations in the next few weeks, promising better air travel experiences for travellers.

It would be recalled that Air Peace launched its first regional service to Accra on February 16, 2017 and commenced the Freetown (Sierra Leone), Banjul (The Gambia) and Dakar (Senegal) flights a year after.