Foreign airlines reinstate lower fares

Some foreign airlines have returned low airfares in their inventory few days after the travel agencies cried out over-exploitation of Nigerian travellers.

The National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) had last week accused foreign airlines of exploiting Nigerian travellers with high airfares over the $465m blocked funds.

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The federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had last week paid half of the money prompting airlines like Emirates to reinstate their flights.

But since then, air travellers said airfares were still on the high side despite the release by the CBN.

However, checks on some of the airlines on Monday indicated that the fares had been reduced by about 40 per cent.

For instance, three weeks ago, the lowest fares on Emirates’ Lagos-Dubai flights was over N1.1m.

But the airline resumed its flight on Sunday with a one-way Economy ticket costing about N709,084 with Business and First Class Cabins costing N3m and N4.8m respectively.

Similarly, Qatar Airways flight on Lagos-Dubai showed N850,000 as the lowest economy fare as against over N1m advertised a few days ago.

However, checks on British Airways’ Lagos-London flight showed that the fare has not changed as the airline is still quoting $2,698 (over N1.7m at the parallel market rate) on its website.  

Also, Turkish Airlines’ one-way flights to Istanbul still cost over N1m.

The president of NANTA, Mrs Susan Akporiaye, in an interview with our correspondent confirmed that the situation is better compared to what was obtained a few weeks ago.

“When Emirates suspended flights, they came back with lower fares. Though the fares are not the lowest, at least it was better than the high fares they were selling,” she said.