2017: N505bn travel tickets under declared-Expert

…puts total earnings at N605bn

The N505.2 billion of tickets reportedly sold by both foreign and domestic carriers for 2017 has been disputed by an aviation expert who insisted that the total tickets sold should not be less than N600 billion.

Aviation consultant and former Commandant, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (Rtd), described it as ‘another contradiction similar to the reports of 2014 and 2015.”

“A stable forex regime, effective implementation of the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business as well as the resumption of flight activities to the Maiduguri Airport, earlier closed due to insecurity, contributed to the increase,” said.

The director-general said that an average of 25,528 passengers presently pass through the 21 airports in the country daily in 305 flights.

But Ojikutu insisted that while one might agree with the NCAA team that not all those who bought tickets could have used it within the reviewed periods and others could have changed their travelling plans and got their fares refunded, he said what is very clear is that the passengers recorded by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) are known as those who passed through the passengers access control and screening point into the aircraft.

Just last week, Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Muhtar Usman, at a Breakfast Business Meeting by Aviation Round Table (ART), said the ticket sales increased by 14.2 per cent (N82.7 billion) compared to the N422.4 billion sold in 2016.

According to him, the eight domestic airlines sold N93.6 billion worth of tickets, while the 32 airlines on the international routes sold tickets worth N411.6 billion during the period under review.

He said the amount realised from the sale of tickets would have been higher if not for the closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, for six weeks to enable government rehabilitate its runway.

“A stable forex regime, effective implementation of the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business as well as the resumption of flight activities to the Maiduguri Airport, earlier closed due to insecurity, contributed to the increase,” said.

The director-general said that an average of 25,528 passengers presently pass through the 21 airports in the country daily in 305 flights.

Ojikutu insisted that while one might agree with the NCAA team that not all those who bought tickets could have used it within the reviewed periods and others could have changed their travelling plans and got their fares refunded, he said what is very clear is that the passengers recorded by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) are known as those who passed through the passengers access control and screening point into the aircraft.

He maintained that they are those recorded by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) as persons on board and they are those, he noted as harmonised passenger traffic figures.

His words: “Therefore, the harmonised figures given by NCAA are deemed to have utilised or expended their purchased tickets.
“The approximately four million international passengers and 10 million domestic passengers are those who bought tickets and have expended their purchased tickets.

“Let us give considerations of about 10 per cent for whatever concessions the airlines and NCAA would want us to consider from about two million outbound passengers, that gives us 1.8 million passengers to consider; let us not factor the fares of the First and Buisness Class passengers but assume that all passengers pay same fare of about N350,000 per passenger; the figure you get in any of the two years cannot be less than N650bn as earnings on the international passengers not N411bn or N501 billion provided by NCAA for 2016 and 2017 respectively.”

He explained that similarly, if each of the five million outbound domestic passengers paid N18,000 without factoring the Business Class passenger fares, to him, the earnings cannot be less but over N90 billion.

To him, the total tickets sales earnings for each of the years can therefore not be less than N740 billion and NCAA’s five per cent tickets sales charges for each of the year cannot be less than N37 billion.

He disclosed that the figures of over N300 billion given on cargo cannot be the airlines earnings on freight, but the NCAA five per cent cargo sales charges, adding that these figures are again given without specifying the volume of cargo that generated the charges.

“Giving a minimum charge of N20/kg, those earnings can only be generated from about 15m to 20m kg as against the over 180m available import and exports. The figures are outrageous and show some sort of manipulations,” he said.

“Overall, the shortfalls are huge and the government through the NCAA is losing average of about N20 billion annually on TSC and CSC and government has lost more than N100bn between 2013 and 2017.”

He further stated that the NCAA should be courageous enough to ask the airlines to show evidence for the balance of over N300billion annually on tickets sales; otherwise, NCAA must take responsibility for all the shortfalls.

Wole Shadare