THE EXPLOITATION OF NIGERIAN FLYERS  

  Foreign airlines’ charges on Nigerian routes are excessive 

The increasing exploitation of Nigerian international travellers who are charged outrageous fares by foreign airlines should not be allowed to continue. While it is not a new trend, the situation has become worse in the last three years. Today, Nigerians pay almost three times the fares being charged in Ghana, Benin Republic and other African countries. Travel agents and aviation insiders readily attribute the excessive fares to the fact that Nigeria has not been able to provide foreign airlines the forex needed for them to repatriate their trapped revenues, which is put at nearly $1 billion. Another reason often peddled is Naira devaluation and the convergence of the parallel and official exchange rates. 

But these reasons cannot explain why fares from Nigeria are exceptional, a trend observable even before the foreign airlines’ trapped funds. In any case, trapped funds are not peculiar to Nigeria. Other African countries with similar challenge include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burundi, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Malawi, Mozambique, Sudan, Gabon, Cameroon, Chad, Congo and Zimbabwe. Yet, travellers from these countries are not subjected to the kind of scandalous airfares that Nigerian passengers are made to pay. 

The major factor for this state of affair is the lack of competition on the routes foreign airlines operate from Nigeria. For example, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are the only airlines that operate direct flights from Nigeria to the United States. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways operate the only direct flights from Nigeria to the United Kingdom. Air France is the only airline that operates direct flights from Nigeria to France while Lufthansa operates the only direct flights from Nigeria to Germany. And KLM is the sole airline that flies directly from Nigeria to Netherlands. It is the same with Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Egypt Air, and others. By creating monopolies for these foreign carriers, they fix exploitative fares. This would not happen if Nigerian carriers also operated flights to these destinations. 

Nigeria has the record of being the highest indigenous travellers in Africa. That makes our country lucrative for these foreign airlines. Unfortunately, studies have shown that the federal government is not supporting Nigerian airlines to operate international routes. In a recent meeting of aviation eggheads, a domestic operator indicted government for not following through to ensure Nigerian carriers are given equal stake with their foreign counterparts while drawing Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA) with countries whose airlines operate into our country. While other countries give full support to their airlines, using their diplomats, Nigerian government officials do otherwise. The consequence is that Nigerian airlines are shabbily treated by Civil Aviation Authorities and foreign desks in the countries they want to obtain approval for flight service. 

Whoever President Bola Tinubu appoints to man the aviation ministry must work to change this sordid narrative that many believe arose due to the compromise of our officials. The federal government must have it as a condition that any country that has airline that fly into Nigeria must allow a Nigeria carrier that has met given conditions to also operate into that country. The principle of reciprocity should be the new watchword. Nigerian airlines that operate international destinations are known to slash fares and such competition will force the country’s airline to also bring down its fares. 

Currently, it is only Ethiopian Airlines and Royal Air Maroc that sell tickets in Naira; other foreign airlines sell in dollars. Even this cannot be allowed to continue. While Nigeria should do everything possible to pay the foreign airlines their trapped funds, we must halt all discriminatory practices against our country in the aviation sector. The onus lies on the federal government to cut down the excesses of foreign airlines who are already used to ripping off our travellers. Sadly, they do so with the complicity of those who ordinarily should work in the interest of our people.