Strong indications emerged on Thursday, that airline operators in Nigeria may soon increase airfare or halt operations after 48 hours of negotiation to resolve the aviation fuel crisis with the Federal Government ended inconclusive.
This was even as President Bola Tinubu granted a 30 percent discount on debts owed different aviation agencies by airline operators, who have been lamenting serious financial crisis facing them due to about 300% sudden increase in the price of aviation fuel.
Notwithstanding this discount by President Tinubu, airline operators have hinted that there would be a likely increase in airfares to be able to sustain operations, stressing that they had overstretched their bearable limit.
However, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, disclosed that focal persons from the interest groups comprising the airline operators, oil marketers, oil regulators and the aviation ministry would have further negotiations and update the public in the next 72.
Keyamo made the disclosure while addressing journalists late Thursday evening in Abuja, after a closed door meeting that lasted four hours with aviation fuel marketers and airline operators.
The presidential waiver slashes debts owed to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, and other federal aviation bodies, which Keyamo called emergency relief, not a subsidy, meant to ease pressure as fuel prices crush operators.
To resolve the crisis, stakeholders agreed to set up technical “focal teams” to thrash out a workable pricing framework. “The focal teams will immediately engage to arrive at fair and reasonable pricing,” Keyamo said.
Keyamo noted that airlines are “being pushed to the brink” by the high cost of aviation fuel and other costs for their sustenance.
Speaking at the briefing, Airline Operators of Nigeria Vice President Allen Onyema, said that Nigerian carriers are hit harder than anyone else.
“No airline can continue under these conditions. The cost of fuel alone is overwhelming operations,” Onyema said. He warned a shutdown could hit within days without fast action.
Onyema however, thanked the Federal government for listening while stressing that within the next seven days if nothing is done to ease the situation further, they would have reached their limits.
Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority CEO, Saidu Aliyu Mohammed, pledged to review pricing templates and press marketers to balance supply with airline survival.
