Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) has said three airlines in the country are on the verge of going extinct in coming weeks, in similar fashion with the other 70 that went extinct in the past few years.
The collapse of the airlines has been attributed to the excessive charges operators are faced with in the sector, primarily, the prevailing high cost of aviation fuel, popularly called Jet A1.
The hike in the price of aviation fuel earlier in the year, caused a hike in airfares with N50,000 now being the base fare charged by all operators on domestic routes. Prior to this, the average cost of a ticket on domestic flights was N30,000.
Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, in an address at the ongoing National Aviation Conference organised by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) in Abuja, said though airlines had been interfacing with the Federal Government on the high cost of aviation fuel, the price of the commodity had continued to increase.
“There are so many issues in the aviation industry. Issues like high taxes are making airlines unprofitable here. We pay excessive charges to the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency. Paying navigation charges is absurd for domestic operations. The mortality rate of airlines in Nigeria is alarming. Over 70 airlines have gone into extinction in the last few years.”
“The current fuel crisis will take away three airlines in the next few weeks. How do we make money in a situation where we pay salaries and charges to different aviation agencies?” Onyema said.
He further stated that the hike in aviation fuel price was putting severe strain on the operations of airlines, even though the Federal Government had given domestic airline operators some volumes of Jet A1.
“That is why we ran to the government and the Federal Government has given us about 10,000 metric tonnes of fuel at the cost of N580/litre in Lagos and about N607/litre outside Lagos,” he stated.
“This is not the only issue. Since the COVID-19 crisis, most airlines all over the world, including Nigeria have not recovered from COVID-19, except those whose countries have injected so much funds to assist airlines.
“This is nobody’s fault. It just happened. The government has tried its best by giving us this aviation fuel. This aviation fuel can take airlines out, not only in Nigeria but everywhere in the world,” the Air Peace CEO further stated, adding that some airlines outside Nigeria had closed down because of the effects of rising aviation fuel, and that the concerns should be addressed in Nigeria to avoid affecting the bottom line of all airlines in Nigeria.
Also speaking on the cost of Jet A1, the Chairman, United Nigeria Airlines, Obiora Okonkwo, said the government had listened to domestic airlines as regards the concern.
“We are very happy and grateful to them but the truth of the situation is that those initiatives taken are still at the implementation stage. It has not been fully implemented, so we are not feeling the impact yet.
“Aviation fuel has continued to rise but I can tell you that some of those promises have been implemented and the impacts, we hope, we will feel soon,” he added.
