Airlines to shut operations over skyrocketing aviation fuel

Nigerian carriers said they can no longer bear the excruciating pain inflicted on them by the astronomic rise in the price of aviation fuel, otherwise known as Jet A1.

To this end, the airlines said they have only three days from today to shut down operations over lack of aviation fuel.

Even the plea by the House of Representatives to wade into the matter is yet to yield the desired result as the carriers are buying Jet A1 at over N600 from N200 per litre that it cost a few months ago.

Just last week, the  Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu said it might be forced to ground some airplanes over the inability of local airlines to maintain them due to the rising cost of JetA1.

The authority stated that the hike in aviation fuel price had led to a spike in the cost of the operations of airlines.

This is just as local airlines under the aegis of the Airline Operators of Nigeria said with the price of aviation fuel increasing from N200 to N670 per litre, they might be forced to suspend flights nationwide.

The stakeholders made their positions known at a meeting called by the House of Representatives in Abuja on Thursday over the current crisis in the aviation sector.

The House had on Wednesday summoned the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari; Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Capt. Nuhu Musa; marketers and airline operators to the meeting over the current scarcity of aviation fuel.

The Deputy Speaker of the House, Ahmed Wase, specifically called the meeting based on a motion of urgent public importance moved by the Chairman, House Committee on Aviation, Nnolim Nnaji,  titled, ‘Urgent Need to Investigate the Sudden Scarcity and High Cost of Aviation Fuel Which Has Created an Existential Threat to Airline Operations and Requires Immediate Intervention by the Federal Government.’

In their presentation, the oil markers said the high dollar rate was responsible for the high cost of fuel.

Asked by the Deputy Speaker of the House who chaired the committee of how much they purchased the dollar and which banks, the representatives of the marketers could not give an answer.

He, therefore, warned against blackmailing the government.

On his part, the Group Managing Director of NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari said that at the moment there were 19 oil companies with 88 million litres of aviation fuel in the country.

The meeting is currently ongoing in the House of Representatives.

Wole Shadare