Yuletide: One Way Air Ticket Hits N150,000 Amid Jet-A1, Forex Scarcity

As airlines continue to battle Jet-A1 Fuel price hike and forex scarcity, air travelers are now paying about N150,000 air fare for a one way trip in-country, LEADERSHIP can now reveal.

This, however, is expected to continue as yuletide approaches, especially, on high traffic routes, most of whom are in the Eastern part of the country.

The yuletide is often the peak period for airline operators but crisis in the aviation sector over inability to access foreign exchange at official rate, aviation fuel hike also known as Jet A1 and Naira devaluation have dampened the expected flight traffic.

The aviation fuel crisis, according to LEADERSHIP, has worsened and is threatening the ability of airlines to continue operations with the price of Jet-A1 rising from N200 in December 2021 to over N400 per litre in February 2022 and currently, skyrocketed to over N800 per litre depending on the area of purchase.

Airlines are also struggling with high operating costs, such as; taxes, surcharges and maintenance costs that have risen because of the scarcity of foreign exchange. Airlines carry out most of their activities in US dollars which today is in short supply.

Findings showed that aviation fuel accounts for over 65 per cent of airline’s revenues, excluding, multiple charges to aviation agencies, labour, aircraft maintenance and rent, non-aircraft rents and professional services, landing fees, amongst others.

Due to these mentioned crisis, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), in February, pegged one-way ticket fare to a minimum of N50,000.

However, since then, one-way airfare has soared above N100,000, especially, as the nation approached yuletide period where traveling is always at the peak

A visit to website of some airlines showed that a one way ticket has hit a whooping N150,000 on high traffic routes as at November 20th, 2022.

According to Airpeace, Lagos to Anambra on 23rd of December as at Sunday, November 20th, 2023, goes for N150,000.

Abuja to Anambra on 20th December goes for N150,000 while flights to same location from 21st to 24th are booked to full capacity and therefore not available.

Abuja to Lagos that was pegged at N50,000 and expected to experience low traffic goes for minimum of N70,000 and may still go up if demand increases.