AIRFARES charged by domestic carriers in the country have remained the same, despite the recent softening in global oil prices.
As the price of crude oil decreases, air passengers had expected that the development would bring down the cost of Jet A1 and eventually, tinker with the domestic airfares.
However, the current airlines’ ticket costs are not different from what it used to be before the recent crude oil price decline.
Checks at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), on Thursday, showed that Enugu Air pegged its Lagos-Abuja flight at N282,000 for a one-way trip; United Nigeria Airlines pegged Lagos-Abuja flight at N185,000, while Arik Air Lagos-Port-Harcourt flight was pegged at N213,709.
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In the same vein, ValueJet charged Lagos-Port-Harcourt one-way ticket for N214,499, just as Air Peace sold Lagos-Abuja one-way ticket for N222,100.
For Rano Air, passengers flying to Kano paid their early morning one-way ticket for N193,500.
Speaking on the impact of the global crude oil cost, Chief Commercial Officer of United Nigeria Airlines, Mr Adedayo Olawuyi said his airline has not seen any major decline in the cost of aviation fuel, stressing that it stayed about the same cost.
“As of December, we were buying it at about N900. Now, as I speak, it’s about N1,600 to N1,700, so there’s still a huge difference. And have ticket prices doubled? No,” Olawuyi said.
According to Olawuyi, market forces aren’t fully reflected in that, stressing that as new airlines come in, fares are being driven down by competition.
“What everyone is trying to do is apply revenue management principles to get the best possible outcome. But, the truth is, it’s not sustainable, it’s not sustainable for us. At one point, we paid as much as N3,300, and ticket prices still didn’t go up by 300 percent, or even 100 percent, in that case. We’re still selling tickets at around N110 to N120. So, our prices went up, but they’ve been balanced out based on demand and supply”, he said.
In his comment, aviation industry analyst, Mr Felix Ukah pointed out that the current global trend of easing crude oil and petrol prices should generally be positive for the aviation industry but advised stakeholders to be patient as it will take some time.
https://tribuneonlineng.com/airfares-static-despite-global-crude-oil-price-decline/
