Flight delays worsen across Nigerian airports over aviation fuel scarcity

Domestic airlines have continued to record flight delays across Nigeria’s airports as a result of scarcity of Jet A1 (aviation fuel).

This is also as the price of the product increased from N200 per litre to between N230 and N250 per litre as operators envisage the price of the product may further increase as a result of the scarcity.

Kingsley Ezenwa, Media and Communications Manager of Dana Air confirmed to BusinessDay that there is scarcity of aviation, which has caused slight flight delays across the country.
Ezenwa said despite the increase in the price of the product, Jet A1 is still scarce as Abuja marketers were locking up stock for international flights.

“Domestic flights in Abuja have to prepay and wait to be allocated. Trucks takes minimum of 3 days to truck from Lagos to Abuja and Apapa gridlock is causing delays in loading and trucking.
“The cost of the product ranges between N220 and N255, depending on location. Lagos is cheaper than outstations because of trucking,” he said.

Last week, the scarcity of aviation fuel in the domestic market derailed hajj operations from Saudi Arabia by Nigerian carriers.

Scarcity of the fuel, which has lingered since the beginning of last week, affected the outbound flight of Skypower Express Airlines, a charter operator in the hajj exercise.

At least about 265 pilgrims of the carrier were delayed at Saudi Arabia airport, as the airline could not purchase fuel in Nigeria.

Muhammed Joji, CEO of Skypower Express Airlines, confirmed this to our correspondent on phone.

According to Joji, attempts to purchase fuel in Lagos and Kano were futile, but explained that the airline eventually bought the product at a very exorbitant rate, which enabled the airline to continue with the second leg of the exercise.

He explained that at least 265 pilgrims of the Carrier were airlifted out of Saudi Arabia on Thursday night with a Boeing 777 aircraft leased from a local operator.

He lamented that the scarcity of the product in the local scene was affecting flight operations in the industry and called on the government to make the product available to airlines.

“It is unfortunate that we don’t have fuel anywhere in Nigeria. We tried to get in Lagos, Kano and other airports, but we couldn’t get any. This unfortunately, affected the airlift of our pilgrims back to Nigeria from Saudi Arabia,” he said.

 

IFEOMA OKEKE