Oil Marketers, Airlines Set For Showdown

Struggling Nigerian airlines and oil marketers who supply them aviation fuel known as Jet-A1, may be bracing up for a showdown, P.M.NEWS has learnt.

It was gathered that the oil marketers have concluded plans to increase a litre of Jet-A1 from N160 to N170, a situation that will further push skyward air fares. Last year, when a litre of aviation fuel was increased by a similar amount, air fares skyrocketed by about 30 percent.

For instance, a trip from Lagos, South West Nigeria to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, went from N16,000 to N21,000 per passenger.

With the planned increase, the same journey, an airline official disclosed, may now go for N25,000, a situation that might force potential air passengers to travel by road.

Aviation fuel, the official disclosed, will now gulp about 50 percent of operational costs of already shaky airlines.

“If this happens,” he said, “most airlines in Nigeria will collapse. There is no way they can cope with such huge costs. They won’t even be able to pay salaries.”

A source at Arik Air recently disclosed that the airline uses between 600,000 and 700,000 litres of fuel daily for its 120 scheduled flights.

“Where do you want us to get about N80 million cash every morning to pay fuel marketers?” he queried.

Already, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, has been holding meetings with the Federal Government and oil marketers to save the industry from collapse.

Sam Adurogboye, spokesman to the NCAA Director General, Dr. Harold Olusegun Demuren, disclosed in an interview with our correspondent that there are concerns over incessant increase in the price of aviation fuel by the marketers.

He said that the Federal Government and stakeholders are holding talks to bring down the cost of Jet-A1 in Nigeria.

—Simon Ateba