Nigerian airlines are beginning to hike the price of airfares to reflect the impact of the high cost of aviation fuel on their activities.
The price of tickets as of Monday, May 9, 2022, rose to between N68,000 and N75,000 depending on the airline.
Ibom Air fixed its price for a 1 hour 15 minutes flight from Lagos to Abuja at N75,000, while its 4pm flight was pegged at N63,000.
Air Peace price and Dana are selling between N55,000 to N58,500 for economy tickets.
The price change is coming after airlines under the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) called off their planned warning strike.
Airline operators said they were buying fuel at N190 per liter in January but by March, it rose to N440 before hitting N700 in May.
AON had on Friday said that based on the unit cost per seat, a ticket for an hour trip was supposed to cost N150,000.
Air Peace founder and Chief Executive Officer, Allen Onyema told Arise Tv that the “unit cost is not sustainable.”
“As an operator, you look at the unit cost per seat and decide which of your inventory to implement. It rose within weeks to N500 and N600. We met with the National Assembly.
“Just about a week ago, (it rose to) N700. We are on the march towards hitting N1,000 if nothing is done. Then what do we do?
“The economics of the game is longer there. The unit cost per seat of an aircraft now is about N120,000. The option open to these airlines is to put the burden on the flying public and for us to do that, the least seat will be N150,000.
Onyema questioned the number of Nigerians that can afford the price hike of N150,000, adding that it would have a ripple effect on the current inflationary pressure.
“How about the inflationary trends? It will spiral out of control. When people start flying at N150,000 as base fare, they are going to apply to other commodities. There will be inflation,” he said.
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