Domestic Air Traffic Disruption in 2026

Chinedu Eze

Aviation experts in Nigeria have raised the concern about the possible disruption of air traffic movement in domestic travel in 2026, ahead of the 2027 general election.

Industry consultant and the Managing Director of Flights and Logistics Solutions Limited, Amos Akpan, who x-rayed the aviation industry in line with passenger movement and air fares in 2026, said passenger numbers between the major airports: Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, would not increase because of high cost of fares during the period.

In other words, there may not be significant increment in passenger traffic between these airports due to high cost of flight ticket on domestic routes.

He however, observed that the ability of people to buy tickets at the current prices is limited in terms of disposable income, noting that the people with such income bracket will not increase in 2026. But on the contrary, feeder airports like Owerri, Uyo, Enugu, Asaba, Benin, Ilorin, Ibadan, Bauchi, Akure, Yola, Maiduguri and others will continue to witness additional numbers in passengers traffic.

According to Akpan, the reason for this is because it is a political campaign year and politicians will travel to different parts of the country for campaign and they will travel to various airports in the country to access different communities for rallies and campaigns.

“There is also additional capacity and frequencies coming from state governments’ acquisition of aircraft. State governments are trying to encourage movements by air in and out of their states by building airports and acquisition of aircraft to support the concept. This position is deduced from FAAN’s (Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria) data, which revealed a drop in passenger figures for the major airports I mentioned above. But same data showed slight rise in passenger figures for feeder airports like Owerri, Uyo, Benin, Akure, Asaba, Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Kaduna. Though, these are limited projects because it takes more than building airports and acquisition of aircraft to create a thriving and sustainable aviation development. Our view now is that these secondary cities will have more flight frequencies, more seats, and more passengers in 2026,” Akpan said.

According to him, airfares may not drop significantly in 2026 because there are no indicators that will reduce the cost of operations. Instead, there are grey areas in new government policies that further compounds cost factors. For example, the new tax laws and the push for increase in aviation agencies revenue generation centres instead of cost recovery centres.

“Airlines and providers of allied services will have stable (not favourable) Forex exchange rates to plan with in 2026 because of Nigeria’s current macroeconomics outlook. But the inability to access funds at interest rates of nine per cent to 15 per cent is a threat because it also affects the airfares, and higher airfares limits patronage. There is the limit of income elasticity for the potential Nigerian domestic travellers. It reaches a crescendo and cuts out. Generally, existing policies are not airlines survival sensitive. Very high working capital funding rates, multiple taxes, complex certification processes that is unified irrespective of category, exemption policies haphazardly implemented, insufficient infrastructures as obstacles to airline expansion and growth, like airports limiting operating times to daytime only (6am to 6pm). Also, insecurity limits travel by air to most airport cities at night because of the distance from airport to final destination by road,” he stated.

Akpan also noted that the Minister and the managers of the aviation agencies have been addressing infrastructural decay by carrying our maintenance and upgrade of facilities, and modernization of existing ones, “but we are still far away from what is ongoing in other countries. Other countries are building hub airports for processing 100+ million passengers while we are renovating the old airports to process 18 to 22 million passengers”.

He also spoke on the decentralisation of the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Nigeria’s premier aviation training intuition, saying that the decentralisation to be located at the main geopolitical zones will give access to train more people, but advised that the focus should be on supporting airlines and maintenance organisations to give line training to young pilots and engineers.

Akpan observed that there are plenty of licensed pilots without jobs because of the cost of line training and there are plenty of maintenance personnel that need on the job training on the current aircraft types operating in the country. These are measures, he said, that will reduce cost of training while creating employment.

“My 2026 hopes are that are airlines will fly more between Nigerian cities and cities in West and central Africa. Air Peace will increase frequency to Dubai and London Heathrow through partnership with other international airlines connecting passengers from Nigeria to Middle East, Europe, Asia, and South America. Investors will partner with existing Maintenance Repairs and Overhaul facilities in Nigeria to expand their scope of services. Tests, repairs, recalibration, and certification of aircraft parts/components will be carried out in Nigerian workshops; especially for the common aircraft types in Nigerian airlines fleet,” he said.

Industry stakeholder and Executive Secretary of Aviation Round Table (ART), Olu Fidel Ohunayo, said he would want to see an industry in 2026, where regulation is left for government, while the private sector is operating commercial airlines and where airport infrastructure is significantly improved.

He expressed the wish that in 2026, the major airports, especially Abuja and Lagos may have transit facilities to enable Nigerian carriers operating international destinations to fully use these major airports as hub by bringing passengers from West and Central Africa and taking them to farther designations from Nigeria.

“We are badly behind in not having a transit facility at our international airports. The transit structure should be extended to Enugu, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano. These are airports that take international flights and these are airports that can take passengers beyond the point of entry. I think there is a need to look at having such transit facilities in those four airports to complement the one coming up in Lagos. We should not rest on our laurels that we are having one. If Lome, Togo here has one, why should we not have one? We should have at least five and that would also help in improving the industry and the prowess of the commercial airlines to operate,” he said.

Ohunayo said that other regions may take a cue with the plans by North East to establish a regional airline, noting that in 2026, other parts of the country are expected to announce similar project.

“I also see some consolidations coming in here, like the north eastern states have done, coming together to start an airline. I expect that maybe the south west or one other region will look at it or one or two states will come together and say, okay, let us see if we can have a joint airline. And from there, the consolidation we have been looking for in the industry, that critical mass might be something that will now spread into partners with the private airlines and new ownership. I think that we will see this year,” he further said.

The industry analyst said he would expect that in 2026, there would be an improved method of data collection and dissemination.

“Again, it is not just collecting data, it is what we use with the data and I expect that will be improved. I think the most important piece is the consumer protection unit of the NCAA,” he said.

Ohunayo also expressed optimism that the problem of unruly passengers in air travel would be tackled effectively this year.

“Another thing is the issue of the unruly passengers. We saw how our underbelly was exposed, coming from two critical airports: Lagos and Abuja in 2025. If such coordination by the agencies, the airlines, there was that lapse in the smooth coordination and effective management of the unruly passengers both post and during the incident.  I expect that this year, we will have a better coordination from all parties. We must also improve the ability not just to make arrests and run to the media, but also ensure that diligent prosecution is followed through so that lessons are learned and others will know that you cannot just walk in, create issues in the industry, run through social media and end there. There must be that prosecution to set the record straight and also make it known that you cannot walk in and create confusion and walk out easily,” Ohunayo said.