Captain Ado Sanusi, the chief executive officer of Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Limited and former CEO of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, says airfares in Nigeria may reduce in the first quarter of 2024.
Sanusi disclosed this on Thursday during an interview on a national Television.
He blamed the current airfare hike on the rising production cost within the aviation sector.
According to him, the only way airfare can be reduced drastically is if the cost of production drops.
“The only way ticket fares can come is if the cost of production is reduced drastically.
“There are fixed and variable costs. You adjust the variable cost but can do little to the fixed cost. The cost of JetA1, personal costs, repairers, maintenance, and foreign exchange can be adjusted. Airline Operators have taken advantage of the high travel demand this festive period to increase their fares. They will reduce their fare because people cannot pay much money to travel.
“You will see a reduction in price in 2024 in January, February, and March because those are the months airlines struggle, so you will see a bit of reduction in fare if there is a stable forex rate throughout the year in the ticket,” he said.
It was gathered that a one-way ticket in Nigeria has increased from N35,000 in 2021 to over N100,000 in December 2023.
Currently, fares from Lagos to Abuja, for instance, are over N100,000, while fares to cities like Owerri, Enugu, Anambra, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Uyo, Asaba and Benin attract airfare as high as N160,000 and N200,000 for an economy one-hour flight.
