Travel and tourism expert Bankole Bernard notes that the launch of the Lagos-London direct flight by local carrier Air Peace has compelled foreign airlines, which previously enjoyed exclusivity on the route, to reduce their airfares.
Bernard, appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief program on Tuesday, expressed that if foreign airlines on the Lagos-London route refuse to reduce their flight fares, they may face elimination from the market.
The former President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) highlighted that international flight ticket prices on the Lagos-London route previously reached as high as N3.5 million. However, with Air Peace offering return economy class tickets for N1.2 million, foreign carriers like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Qatar Airways have been compelled to lower their prices to remain competitive.
He said foreign airlines operating into the four major airports in Nigeria are making more than enough profit, unchallenged. The four major gateways are Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano. “If they’ve been able to do, there is no need coming out to complain about (forex) backlog. May be we set up an audit committee to look at how they arrived at these backlogs,” he said.
“How come all of a sudden airfares have gone down? What could be responsible for that? Number one: there is a new entrant to a major route (Lagos-London),” Bernard said.
“There are two major destinations that Nigerians ply. Number one is Dubai and Dubai has been out of it for a while now. So, we (Nigerians) have resorted to the London route. The UK route is where a lot (of foreign carriers) use to earmark their airfares.
“Now that Air Peace has come into that space with a direct flight that will not cause any layover in any other country, the price has dropped. Why? What happened? Is there a magic around that? We should be able to question what made the prices drop.
“The prices will drop as long as we have another form of supply that is different from the conventional ones. The supply that we now have — that is Air Peace, that is a direct flight — will definitely put pressure on every other route. So, all the other airlines are forced to quickly make an adjustment or they will be out of the market in no time.”
On the preceding Saturday, Air Peace, one of Nigeria’s domestic carriers, commenced its direct flight services to Gatwick Airport in London.
The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, and his counterpart at the Ministry of Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anita, were among the passengers on the inaugural Lagos-London flight, alongside various businessmen and women.