Foreign airlines make $941m from tickets in Nigeria

The International Air Transport
Association (IATA) has unveiled the fortunes of foreign airlines,
recording ticket sale of $941 million in the first half of 2018 in
Nigeria.

 

The ticket sold during the period is an improvement on that of 2017 which stood at $846 million.

 

The airlines recorded a total of $1.6 billion from the Nigerian market in 2017.

 

The President of the National Association
of Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA), Mr. Bankole Bernard, said from IATA
records, there was a marked

improvement in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year.

 

This is because international carriers increased capacity during the period under review.

 

He said in 2016 when many foreign carriers could not repatriate their funds from ticket sales they cut back their capacity.

 

Bankole added that with the availability
of dollars and the completion of the payment of $600 million blocked
funds by the federal government in March this year, the airlines
increased capacity on their Nigerian routes.

 

“Available records from IATA show that there is progress.

 

“There is increase in capacity this year because last year there were restrictions.

 

“Airlines could not repatriate their funds from ticket sales, so they reduced capacity.

 

“Emirates, which operated 21 frequencies
a week, reduced their flight service to only seven frequencies a week.
But the airline restored its 21 weekly operations this year: two daily
from Lagos and one daily from Abuja to its
hub in Dubai.

 

“Airlines like British Airways, Delta Air
Lines and other international carriers reduced the size of their
aircraft, as passenger movement was reduced due to the recession. But
things have improved significantly,” Bernard said.

 

The Director General of the Nigerian
Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Muhtar Usman, also said that
some foreign airlines took commercial decisions and pulled out from
Nigeria, while some reduced their capacity.

 

He added that as the economy improved, those foreign carriers have come back and some are even requesting for more frequencies.

 

“Some airlines took commercial decisions
when they saw the situation did not favour their interest in terms of
revenue earnings two years ago, but they have returned their operations
to Nigeria.

 

“And that goes to testify that the
economy has improved because you can now see that those that stopped
operations have come back and some are even asking for more routes and
more entry points into Nigeria and some are also asking
for more frequencies. So it is a testimony that the economy is picking
up,” Usman said.

 

In a recent data released by African
Aviation Services Limited, foreign airlines operate over 300 frequencies
weekly into and out of Nigeria.

 

This shows an increase of 22 per cent from about 220 weekly frequencies operated by foreign airlines two years ago.

 

Ethiopian Airlines, which operates into
five airports, including Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano and Enugu, has the
highest entry points into Nigeria.

 

Ethiopian and its partner airline, ASKY
operate 54 frequencies weekly into Nigeria, while British Airways and
Virgin Atlantic operate 21 frequencies weekly into Nigeria.

 

The breakdown further shows that African
World Airways (AWA) has 49 frequencies per week; Egypt Air with 16; Air
France 15; Saudi Arabian Airways 13; Emirates 21; Lufthansa 11; Air Cote
d’Ivoire10; Qatar 9 and South African Airways
7.

 

Other airlines that operate into Nigeria
include Delta, Royal Air Maroc, Rwanda Air, Sudan Airways, Turkish
Airways, which operates 7 frequencies.

 

Etihad has five frequencies; Fly Mid
Africa has four frequencies; Middle East Airlines has four and AirItaly
formerly Meridiana has three weekly flights into the country.

 

In 2017 foreign airlines earned a total of N503 billion from ticket sales.