Airline operators in Nigeria have threatened to shut down operations in three days over the hike in the price of aviation fuel, popularly known as Jet-A1. In a stakeholders' meeting held on Monday with deputy speaker, House of Representatives, Ahmed Wase, the Chairman of Air Peace, and Vice President, Airline Operators of Nigeria, Allen Onyema, on behalf of the Airlines said aviation fuel marketers are increasing the price of the Jet A1, leading to the skyrocketing of airfares and disruption of flights.
In attendance were the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Mele Kyari, marketers and airline operators.
Mr. Onyema explained that the aviation oil marketers have refused to disclose the details in the pricing and how they arrived at the hiked price.
“I have the mandate of every airline in this country to announce to you that if they cannot come down from their rooftop, we have only three more days to be able to fly. We are not threatening this country. We have been subsidising what we are doing.
“I will give you the rate as of today, (at) N630, N640, N650 (per litre). We have an aircraft going to Kano that has about 7000 litres of fuel on it. Multiply it by 630. The unit cost per seat already is about N70,000 per seat. You have not talked about the insurance that is very static and Nigerians pay a lot of insurance premiums because this country is stigmatised.”
He added, “You have to insure in London and other places abroad. It is a loss. All the insurance companies in Nigeria put together cannot even insure one aircraft. So, you have to go abroad to insure and they slam us with heavy premiums. What we use in insuring one plane is what the legacy airlines of this world use in insuring about three planes. So, the Nigerian airline is dead on arrival.
“Yet, the fuel cost which was supposed to be about 30 to 40 per cent (of operational costs) in every other clime in the world, in Nigeria it is about 70 per cent even before this time (of scarcity). So, you can now see the mortality rate of airlines in this country and the causes.”
He urged the Federal Government to give Airline operators licence to import Jet A1.
Speaking, the NNPC boss said presently, 19 companies have stock of aviation fuel but pricing still remains a thing of discord between companies and airline operators.
He added that the NNPC has engaged other companies to supply aviation fuel to airlines to increase availability.
