Senate probes discriminatory fares by foreign airlines

Following the fare differentials charged by foreign airlines on the Lagos-London/ Accra-London route, the Senate on Wednesday asked its Committee on Aviation to investigate all issues relating to compliance or non-compliance with the relevant aviation laws.

 This is sequel to a motion moved by the chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Hope Uzodinma, and sponsored by 27 other senators. Before the matter was referred to the committee, Senate President David Mark noted that the rip-off in the Nigerian aviation industry “has been on for very long” and asked the committee to “find out why”.

 He said, “The fare charged Nigerian travellers are completely out of reach; it is unreasonable, it is exploitative, nobody should come here to exploit Nigerians, our regulatory agencies are colluding with them to exploit Nigerians”. Uzodinma in the motion said that a whopping $235 million or about N3.7 billion arbitrary fares charged by the foreign airlines were above the rates charged on routes of equal distance outside Nigeria to different parts of the world.

 He observed that a London- New York return economy ticket is $624, London- Dallas is $787, London-Florida is $730, London-Atlanta is $772 while the cheapest economy return ticket from Abuja-London amounts to $1200.

 He also observed that the first class Lagos-London return fare is $10,816, while Abuja-London return flight is $10,144, whereas, the same booking for a passenger on the Accra-London route is $4,798 while business class Lagos-London return fare is $7,370 and Accra- London route is $4,098. In their contributions, Barnabas Gemade and Olubunmi Adekunle chorused that the country’s regulatory authorities were responsible for the crisis in the aviation industry.