By Francis Ogwo
Airlines operating the domestic routes in Nigeria have hiked their fares ahead of the resumption of flights scheduled for Wednesday.
The Federal Government had announced Wednesday, July 8th, as resumption date for domestic flight since the airports went under lock and key in March due to the lockdown order to contain the spread of COVID-19.
According to airport sources, there is a hike in all class of tickets for one-hour flights from Lagos to Abuja.
Air Peace’s Economy-Flexi Domestic plan went for N33,001 for a one way Lagos-Abuja trip with its business class ticket sold for N80,000.
Dana Air sold for N33,000 on economy discount for a one way Lagos to Abuja flight, the Economy Flexible plan sold for N70,500.
Azman sold its economy tickets for N33,000 with the business class going for N60,000 for the a 1hour, 15 minutes’ trip.
The lowest among the fares was Arik Air’s with its N29,189 for economy and N71,532 for business class flights for a one-way Lagos to Abuja trip.
It was also discovered that a business class one-way trip sold for N126,199 for a trip slated for 4pm.
In Air Peace’s economy flight breakdown, the base fare was N14,239 while taxes and other fares made up the remaining N18,762, pushing the total amount to N33,001.
Recall that before the lockdown, economy tickets were as low as N15,000 and some; as high as N40,000 for a one-hour flight.
In the meantime, Arik Air has disclosed that it will be operating three daily flights from Lagos to Abuja in the first stage of the reopening as it informed that Port Harcourt will be added to the schedule from Saturday, July 11, 2020, when the Port Harcourt International Airport would be reopened for operations.
Observers say the competitiveness of airlines operations would likely have an effect on the current price regime.
