By Louis Ibah

Nigerian Domestic airlines have increased their cost of air fares in response to rising cost of aviation fuel even as safety measures and security are being beefed up at airports across the country in readiness for a surge in passenger traffic characteristic of the Christmas/New Year celebrations.

Investigation by Daily Sun at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos and on the online portals of most airlines revealed that some of the airlines had upped their fares in the last three days as opposed to what was obtainable in the previous weeks.

For instance, a trip from Lagos and Uyo, which went for as low as N20,000 on economy class tickets has been increased to between N26,000 – N32,000 by the airlines plying that route. In the same vein, air tariffs on an economy class flight ticket from Lagos to Abuja that could be bought across counters at less than N40,000 now goes for about N50,000 for early morning flights. Online tickets (booked days ahead of departure dates) on the Lagos – Abuja flights that usually sold for about N24,000 – N26,000 is now going for as high as N32,000 – N35,000 on an economy ticket. Some other routes that are experiencing tariff hikes include the Lagos – Kano; Lagos – Port Harcourt; Abuja – Port Harcourt; Lagos – Kaduna; Lagos – Calabar; Lagos – Enugu routes.   Some passengers who spoke to Daily Sun at the Lagos airport described the current fares hike as worrisome and also discouraging air travel.  “The airlines are increasing their fares and it is no longer possible to find flights of N16,000 – N20,000 in Nigeria which was the case on some airlines by this same time last year,” said Amos Ndayako, a passenger who spoke to Daily Sun at the Lagos airport.

“A situation where airlines this week now charge economy class fares of up to N50,000 on a journey of less than an hour within the country means traveling by are is now a thing of the privileged or upper class citizens. It wasn’t so five, four, two or even one year ago because  we were still buying tickets online at less than N20,000.

Related News

Many middle-class Nigerians will not have the disposable income to fly this Christmas for holidays and what this tells us is that the new fares are exorbitant,” Ndayako added.

 Another passenger who gave his name as Edet and who spoke to Daily Sun at the Lagos airport said current fares “were discouraging to air travelers.”

 “I booked online late last night for a ticket to Uyo from Lagos for a flight tomorrow and got it at N21,800 but had problems making payments. And I said let me come to the airport and pay directly only to be told that it has expired. And while Air Peace said it’s N32,000. I went back to Dana Air and was told it’s N30,000. This kind of price increase discourages and I have opted to go by road,” he added.           

A senior official of one of the airlines told Daily Sun that the rates “were not exorbitant but only reflects the existing market realities.” 

“The air fares you get in Nigeria are still cheap when viewed against the airlines’ overhead cost like the rise in pump price of aviation fuel, multiple charges paid at airports, insurance cost, and cost of aircraft repairs. Whatever fare we give out is a sacrifice or a service and not for huge profits. We are doing our best to balance satisfying the passenger and also not going out of business,” added the official, a spokesperson of one of the airlines who would not want to be named. He however explained that in response to the law of demand and supply, passengers might experience an increase on some days on some routes just as they could be a noticed decrease on some other routes. “No airline wants to fly empty seats, and so ticket cost could swing either upwards or downwards on some days and certain time of the day depending on market forces. For instance, some weekend flights are costlier than mid-week flights,’ said the official. “Whenever I get complaints of frequent changes on fares on our online portals particularly from people who book a particular flight ‘on-hold’ online and under one hour while trying to pay the fare goes up, I tell them to try booking the next day and they will discover that that next day flight will still be cheaper. It’s the law of demand and supply that determines ticket cost most often,” he explained.