More Airlines Emerge Amid Declining Passenger Traffic In Nigeria written by Olusegun Koiki
…15 Domestic Airlines Battle For 11.5m Passengers …Economy, Inadequate Capacity Reasons For Low Patronage – Experts LAGOS – Despite the continuous decline in the figure of Nigerian air travelers, the number of scheduled airlines has continued to grow. The 2024 traffic figure indicated a decline to 11,549,443 passengers from the 12.05 million recorded in 2023. As at 2024, Nigeria had 15 domestic carriers, but the exit of Dana Air has reduced the figure to the current 14 carriers. Also, no fewer than two additional airlines may start operations in the domestic scene before the end of the year. Enugu Air, financed by the Enugu State government, is expected to commence operations before the end of the year, having recently acquired two Embraer 170 aircraft. The state joins Akwa Ibom and Cross River states as the only three states with their own airlines in Nigeria. The current statistics obtained by Daily Independent revealed that passenger traffic in Nigeria has continued to nosedive in the domestic and international scenes, except in 2022 when the country recorded 16.7 million passengers, including 12 million local travels. The number of domestic air travelers in 2021 stood at 13,006,481, indicating 6,533,740 inbound and 6,472,741 outbound. In 2022, a total of 16.172,433 passengers passed through Nigerian airports, encompassing both domestic and international travel. The breakdown of the 2022 travels, showed 12 million domestic passengers, while the other four million passengers were international passengers. For 2023 travels, there were 15,895,265 passengers in and out of the country, out of which 12.05 million were domestic air travelers. For the 2024 figures, domestic travelers fell to 11, 549,443 passengers from 12.05 million in the previous year indicating 4.8 percent drop. Commenting on the issue, Engr. Femi Adeniji, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the US-based aircraft brokerage, Nigame Aircraft Consultancy, attributed the reduced passengers to high cost of tickets, unreliable flight schedules, delays and cancellations. Adeniji explained that with the current unreliable schedules of the domestic airlines, no business person could schedule meetings using the scheduled carriers. He, however, said that the current scheduled carriers were inadequate for the estimated 200 million population of the country. To attract more air travelers to the industry, Adeniji advocated waivers on parts duty for the airlines, incentives in different areas to operators, easy accessibility to Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities and parts depot. He believes that all these would drive down the escalated airline tickets as the need for foreign exchange by the operators would drop. He said: “High cost of airline tickets, which is dependent on the exchange rates, is one of the factors responsible for high airfares and the continuous drop in the number of air passengers. Also, despite the high cost, you cannot rely on the airlines’ schedule. So, you are better off taking the road risk. “Benefits such as waivers on parts duty for the airlines, incentives in different areas to operators, easy accessibility to MRO in the country and others will drive down the escalated airline tickets because the need for foreign exchange by the airliners would reduce. “These will encourage the airlines to reduce prices and maintenance reliability of the aircraft will increase, thereby preventing delay and cancellations and ensure passengers increase.” Besides, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, Director, Research, Zenith Travels, said that the recent additions, NG Eagle, Rano Air and others, lacked large capacity to make an impact in the industry. Ohunayo expressed that the lack of capacity was responsible for the discontinuation of daily flights to some airports in the country by indigenous carriers. He, however, refused to blame the airlines for the drop, rather advised the government and its agencies to firm up the economy and introduce programmes that would encourage more air travelers into the industry. He said: “In the domestic market, one or two airlines tried to launch, we have NG Eagle, Rano Air and these ones didn’t come with large capacity and their impact was not really felt until today. That is why you still don’t have daily flights to some routes like Calabar. This was a city that was having two flights daily before now. Enugu has been reduced to one flight per day, too. “The data that show passengers diminished on the local routes are a fact that the government needs to work on. The airline industry is not operating in isolation. Remember that the naira spirals out of control due to the floating of the naira to the dollar, which was also exacerbated by the removal of subsidy on fuel. This brought about inflation in almost every index of the sectors of the economy. The purchasing power was reduced. “If there are aircraft that will fly Calabar-Obudu for instance, people will fly, but they cannot fly when the infrastructure are not there. People want to go to some places in the morning and return the same day or go in the morning and return at night or even the next morning, but if there is just one flight a day in some routes, and there is possibility of the fact that the flight may be canceled, then, people will be reluctant to fly.” Ohunayo posited that there was the need to tinker with the regulations a bit, while the government needed to revamp the economy for industry to thrive. To Alex Nwuba, the President of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria (AOPAN), the coming onboard of additional airlines was a positive one for the industry as the existing carriers are faced with shrinking capacity. According to him, the fleet of some of the existing airlines had dropped astronomically in recent times, thereby affecting their schedule reliability. Nwuba explained that the number of available seats, not the number of airlines is what matters most on route development. Like others, he mentioned the poor economy as one of the factors militating passenger growth in the domestic scene. He also mentioned low wages, costs of living, high airfares and the drop in the value of naira against major currencies as some of the other reasons. He further regretted that traveling by air had exceeded the capacity of most Nigerians, leading to low travel numbers, adding that domestic tourism was also almost dead. He said: “It should not surprise you to learn that airlines that have 20 aircraft in their fleet only sometimes have five flights ready. There are several factors responsible for this, which include operational incidents, forex availability and capital issues, even management issues. “Airfares have increased, though not in dollar terms. Because of the high cost of acquiring dollars, the fares have been stagnant, but converted to naira, it has seen multifold increases.” He appealed to the government to address industry inputs like fuel, airports, service providers and all increasing costs. Besides, Grp. Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), aviation analyst, attributed the drop in domestic travels to weakened national economy and unreliable domestic carriers. He also suggested the re-classification of the existing carriers to scheduled and unscheduled, while the airports are also graded based on their facilities and services rendered. He described it as shameful for a population of over 200 million not to have a quarter of its population flying annually. He added, “Check out the passenger traffic in contemporary countries with their population. The annual passenger traffic at Johannesburg airport alone is more than the total for all 22 or 28 airports combined. “The solution is for the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to regulate the airlines to scheduled and unscheduled. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) plans to grade airports based on their service charges, while airlines reduce their operational costs. Therefore, introduce low fare tickets.”.