Airline Operators Give 3-Day Notice To Shut Down Operations Over Scarcity of Aviation Fuel
Vondigest.com gathers that owing to the scarcity of aviation fuel local airlines have said they have only three days from today to shut down operations.
This is just as the operators said Nigerians would now have to spend an average rate of N120, 000 for an economy ticket, if the airlines were to continue being in operations.
Speaking before the special House Committee investigating the unavailability of the product, the airlines represented by the chief executive officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, said they could not afford the fuel anymore.
Meanwhile, this online platform understands that the representatives of the oil markers have said the high dollar rate was responsible for the high cost of the fuel.
This is just as the fuel marketers failed to convince the House of Representatives on why the prices of the product are hitting the rooftops on a daily basis.
At the moment, the airlines are buying the fuel at N670, up from the normal price of 190 recently.
Deputy speaker of the House, Ahmed Idris Wase, who chaired the committee, asked the marketers how much they purchased the dollar and which banks, but the representatives of the marketers could not give an answer. He, therefore, warned them against blackmailing the government.
Chief executive officer, West Link Airlines, Captain Ibrahim Mshelia, has warned that Nigeria cannot afford to have its aviation sector shut down, saying government should make a deliberate policy to make foreign exchange and Jet A1 available to operators.
Recall that air passengers, for the past few weeks, have been experiencing difficulties traveling across the country as aviation fuel which sold between N580 and N607 per litre in Lagos last Tuesday, rose to N700 on Sunday.
The scarcity, however, led to flight delays, and in some extreme cases cancellations, thereby disrupting passengers’ schedule even as marketers said Jet A1 was not readily available across the country.
However, the group managing director of NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, yesterday revealed that at the moment there are 19 oil companies with 88 million litres of aviation fuel in the country.
