As a result of the economic downturn in the country today and the fact that beginning of every year, airlines record low passenger movement, Nigerian airlines are fast losing passengers traffic.
Industry observers say that airlines have lost about 40 per cent of the traffic because many people who otherwise would be travelling chose not to because there is a lull in economic activities in the country, especially now that the appropriation bill has not been passed into law.
Besides, the devaluation of Naira has exacerbated the poor economic situation in the country so people travel only when they could and those who cannot afford air fares chose to travel by road or through any other means.
Spokesman of a major airline told BusinessDay that it is almost traditional in the air travel market that airlines witness low passenger movement at the beginning of the year but what makes it more challenging in Nigeria is because of the low price of crude and consequently Nigeria’s poor economic status.
But BusinessDay investigation revealed that average air ticket for one hour travel goes for N14,000 but could rise as high as N23,000 at weekends.
Last week air fares started rising to N18,000 from Thursday and continued to rise average of N24,000 by Sunday and continued till Monday afternoon.
But from Monday evening till end of Wednesday last week, the fares were relatively low, so airlines waited till weekend to benefit from high weekend sales. However, the numbers of people that travel have reduced significantly and that explains why the airlines are crying out because with high exchange rate that has risen to N350 to $1, it would be extremely difficult for airlines to pay for spares, carry out training overseas and pay their personnel.
Chris Aligbe, Industry consultant, acknowledged that Nigerian airlines are facing hard times now.
“Airlines have dollar component which the road transport subsector does not have. We don’t have a maintenance yard yet or maintenance or repair yard yet; they are outside the country. Whatever they earn, they cannot even increase to the point to meet up the level of increase in the devaluation of the Naira. So they need more money today to pay for maintenance, they need more money today to meet their external obligations.”
He added that with the economic down turn, the devaluation of the Naira, and with Central Bank fighting to manage our foreign exchange earnings, the airlines have come under severe stress.
An official of one of the nation’s airlines said that presently the load factor is being encouraged by corporate organisations that sponsor their staff to travel by air. These passengers on corporate travel go for the prime airlines and pay for business class seats.
“Our load factor has improved. Our business class is always full but 80 per cent of passengers are staff of corporate organisation,” the source said.
Ifeoma Okeke
