About Air Peace
A little more than ten years ago, very few privately owned Nigerian airlines could boast adequate coverage of domestic operations, let alone regional capacity and international expansions. Amid this reality, Air Peace flew into the industry in 2014 to redefine air travel experiences for Nigerians and other travellers by offering seamless connections to domestic, regional, and international destinations.
Fast forward to 2024, and Air Peace has established itself as a prominent player in the industry, connecting people, businesses, and cultures across Nigeria, West Africa, and beyond. United by the need to redefine fragmentations across two different industries, payments and airlines, Flutterwave and Air Peace’s partnership has demonstrated how efficient collaborations can create a remarkable success story.
The Challenge
To redefine air travel experiences for travelers of all ages in Nigeria, West Africa, and beyond, Air Peace started with conventional payment systems that served its immediate needs while operating a few daily trips in Nigeria. As expected, that approach could not match Air Peace’s rapid growth from a few hundred to millions of customers and continuous expansion drive across the world.
Air Peace needed to integrate the right B2B payment company to ensure a seamless and trustworthy payment experience for its travelers. Such a payment partner must have the capacity to guarantee secure and reliable payment gateways, support local and international payment methods, and understand the importance of being able to constantly scale operations without increasing excessive payment costs (Flutterwave provides competitive pricing across all its 30+ markets), especially in an industry where over $20 billion is spent globally on collecting air travel payments every year.
The Solution
In 2017, Air Peace chose Flutterwave as the major payment provider it needed to streamline customer payment processes and minimize transaction failures while focusing on its daily operations and expansions into new markets. Since then, Flutterwave has addressed and is still addressing Air Peace payment challenges using its comprehensive payment gateway that enables local and cross-border transactions via one Application Programming Interface (API). In addition, Flutterwave has been leveraging its network of global partnerships and infrastructural reach across 30+ countries to support Air Peace’s commitment to delivering a seamless and world-class experience for its millions of customers – from Lagos to Abuja, Accra to Johannesburg, and Mumbai to London. This makes it convenient for travelers to make airline payments securely and quickly using multiple payment methods, including bank transfers, local and international cards supported by Air Peace and powered by Flutterwave.
Promise Kept
An Air Peace customer who paid for a London-Lagos roundtrip ticket via Flutterwave tweeted in excitement “Just paid for Air Peace Tickets to Lagos through a Flutterwave gateway with my UK card and everything went so smoothly, for less than GBP800 round trip. There was a drop down for nationality while I was booking, and the first option was Nigeria, that bit made me smile.” This is one in many reviews from customers on the collaboration between Flutterwave and Air Peace, and how it personalizes the payments experience for them.
The coming together of West Africa’s largest airline and Africa’s leading payment technology company, prominently known for its safe, secure, and world-class payment solution, brings peace of mind to travelers making payments and the airline collecting them. By integrating Flutterwave’s payment gateway into its operations, Air Peace has streamlined payment collections and reduced processing times. The airline successfully grew its transaction count with Flutterwave by over 150% within the first full five years of integration. This amounts to hundreds of thousands of successful payment transactions collected across its website and mobile apps, with the bulk of the payments usually collected from Q4 to Q1 of each year.
Good to Know
- At the beginning of H2, 2023, Flutterwave’s capacity to support airline services like Air Peace was solidified with the integration of its payment gateway into the IATA Financial Gateway (IFG), an omnichannel payment orchestration and management platform designed for airlines to receive local payments from local markets. With this integration, global airlines can collect local currencies through cards and indigenous methods such as bank transfer, mobile money, and other payment methods supported by Flutterwave.
- Flutterwave’s comprehensive infrastructure reaches beyond Africa, and it is a readily available value-added service for enterprises like Air Peace that are currently operating or seeking to operate globally. So, when Air Peace reached another milestone with its launch of the Lagos to London direct flight in March 2024, it seamlessly leveraged Flutterwave’s support for international payments to collect payments from travelers boarding from the UK to Nigeria. This makes the partners define air travel experiences and improves connections between Nigerian cities and the world.
Testimonial
“At Air Peace, fast and secure payment is central to realizing our ambition of seamlessly connecting travelers to their destinations locally, regionally and internationally across Nigeria, Africa beyond. With a focus on defragmenting payments across the continent, Flutterwave shares this vision with us and we are excited to be working together in enhancing our payment processes and providing customers with a seamless payment transaction experience. We look forward to continuing our collaboration as we both expand to new markets,” Mrs Oluwatoyin Olajide, Chief Operating Officer at Air Peace.
Streamline your payment collections with Flutterwave. Get Started!