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Air travellers are weighing the options on how to get to their destination from different parts of the country, following increase in air fares averaging about 64 per cent on major routes over the weekend.
Besides getting onboard airplanes, Nigerian travellers are exploring the rail and road modes of transportation as the hike in air fares will take out more cash from their pockets.
Apart from Green Africa Airways, other carriers, such as Air Peace, Arik Air, AZMAN Air, United Nigeria Airways, Max Air, Aero Contractors and DANA Air, have fixed N50,000 as base economy class tickets on a one hour flight.
According to The Nation, passengers who turned up at the Lagos Airport on Sunday described the development as worrisome.
The air travellers said they were still struggling to meet up with the old regime when the new fare increase was introduced.
Citing the oscillating exchange rate, rising price of aviation fuel, which increased from N190 per litre to N400 per litre between 2021 and 2022, operators had hinted of possible air fare increase as the current cost components could not sustain profitable flight operations.
Average fares on major routes, a few weeks ago, hovered between N27,000 to N29,000.
The current fare hike may have been orchestrated by instability in the price of aviation gas, also called Jet A1.
Currently, aviation fuel costs above N410 in Lagos, N422 in Abuja and Port Harcourt, and N429 in Kano per litre.
Aside from aviation fuel price, which remains unstable, airlines’ difficulty to access foreign exchange at the official window are sourcing dollars at the parallel market between N580 and N600, because of short supply.
As at yesterday, an economy class for the domestic ticket on Max Air outbound Jos to Abuja from March 1, 2020 sold at 50,000, while Green Africa Airlines’ Lagos to Port Harcourt went for 35,000, as opposed to its ¦ 16,500 fare.
Same Green Africa sold its Owerri to Abuja flight tickets at 35,000, while Air Peace Lagos to Abuja sold at 50,000.
Equally, Air Peace sold Lagos to Benin return ticket for 105,000; Azman Air flight from Abuja to Kano from the same March 1 sold at 50,000, while Overland Airways Akure to Abuja went for the same 50,000.
Other airlines – Dana, Ibom Air, Aero Contractors – have raised their ticket prices by 100 per cent.
The airlines, last week, in a seven-page letter, gave 16 reasons why flights were always delayed and cancelled across board.
The statement by the airlines read: “Unavailability and ever rising cost of aviation fuel – JetA1 – today costs above N410 in Lagos, N422 in Abuja and Port Harcourt, and N429 in Kano per litre and has continued to rise fast and steadily. On top of the continuous rise in the fuel price, fuel supply is at best epileptic at several airports thereby causing delays.
“Unavailability of forex for spare parts and maintenance – airlines carry out most of their activities in dollars which today sells for between N580 to N600 and is in short supply.
“Nigeria’s domestic airlines are in a ‘life and death’ struggle to secure the forex they need to acquire their spare parts to maintain their aircraft. This is a major influence on how quickly a grounded aircraft can be fixed and restored to its flight schedule, which in turn has a huge impact on the schedule reliability of the domestic airlines.”
Lamenting the development, a passenger, Theodore Afam, said: “Well, if I was given the opportunity to have the cash on hand, I would not buy a ticket for 50,000. There are people plying road. Security or not, people travel everyday. The airlines stopped serving refreshments under the guise of COVID-19. They delay to the point it is better if you take the train. Worse is they don’t tell you anything.”
Another passenger who did not want to be named in print described the hike as outrageous.
He said: “People will still fly. But I tell you that if the trains and roads get better, this charade would end. You want to fly at 5 pm, someone shifts your flight to 10 pm, saying there is no fuel. Now that they have increased it, let us see whether or not the service will come back. Even snacks, they don’t give. I wonder what the basis is to increase if service is not there.”
Most of the airlines contacted by the The Nation on the reason for the hike kept mum on the matter.
Investigations by the medium revealed that though the sector is deregulated, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has not commented on the matter.
An industry expert, who pleaded not to be named, said there is nothing the NCAA could do about the issue.