The Airline Operatorsof Nigeria (AON) has disclosed that the price of Jet A1, otherwise known as aviation fuel, has increased by 62,000 per cent in the country in the last two decades.
Police Commissioner for Murtala Muhammed Airport, Tunji Caulcrick, with the Managing Director, Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCOL), Mr Olu Owolabi, during a courtesy visit by the police boss to the latter in his office, recently.
This is just as the association put the total debts of the domestic airlines at N200bn as of December 2011.
These revelations came from the General Secretary of AON, Captain Mohammed Joji, at a one day programme organised by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA, )last week.
According to Joji, a litre of aviation fuel in the 90s was 31k, but now N170 and N190 per litre depending on the litres and the airport an airline is buying from.
Joji decried that the skyrocketed increase of 62,000 per cent was the highest anywhere in the world and described the situation as disgusting and unacceptable to the operators.
He said, “There is no where in the world that the percentage of aviation fuel has increased to that level in the space of two decades.
This can only happen in Nigeria and no one is blinking an eye. This situation is not helping the Nigerian airline operators to grow.
The government is not assisting us and this is quite most unfortunate.”
He posited that despite the massive increase in the price of the product per litre, the operators had not increased the airfares by 62, 000 per cent, maintaining that if they did, the volume of passengers patronising air transport in the country would reduce.
Also, Joji disclosed that the airlines were indebted to various organisations in the country, including banks, to the tune of N200bn, but declined to disclose the names of the banks the airlines are indebted to or how the debts were incurred.
He said that the possibility of airlines paying this debt was minute; adding that with the way things were in the sector, the airlines would have to take care of their survival before it could talk about paying the incurred debts.
He also disclosed that the intervention fund that was supposed to bailout the airline did not achieve the desired result, alleging that it had only succeeded in bailing out banks that the airlines were indebted to.
He emphasised that the bailout was spread for over a period of 10 years at seven per cent interest rate, which he said was good for the airlines, unlike the double digits interests they were paying before now.
He recalled that the Federal Government in 2006, after the many air crashes that enveloped the sector, came out with waivers on spare parts as part of efforts to ensure that airlines stopped cutting corners, but lamented that the officials of the Nigerian Customs Service frustrated the good intention of the government by insisting on duties on the imported spare parts.
He also alleged that banks and Asset Management Company of Nigeria colluded to make things difficult for airlines, adding that this had led to airline’s debts being spread for a period of 10 years.
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