Nigeria’s newest entrant in the domestic aviation sector Green Africa has instigated a price war leading to crash in airfares on some major routes across the country especially on Lagos to Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Ilorin, and Owerri routes. This came after passengers complained about the exorbitant cost of air tickets in the county which in recent times was hiked by over 100 percent. But with the actions taken by the airline startup, Green Africa, rates are dropping off the sky, literally.
Though Green Africa Airways is yet to commence flight, it has started selling tickets to passengers as flight operations won’t begin earlier than June 24, 2021.
This development comes against the backdrop of claims that due to the high cost of running airline business in Nigeria, coupled with very high taxes and other handling charges, it would take more than the entrance of more operators to crash flight rates.
But it appears that Green Africa has broken the jinx as it slashed its prices by over 50%. For instance, its airfares for Lagos and Abuja and vice-versa are between N16,500 and N23,000.The airline, which primarily focuses on six domestic destinations, including Abuja, Port Harcourt, Akure, Ilorin, Enugu and Owerri, charged N16,500 from Lagos to Port Harcourt, while others charged about N60,000 in April. Flights to Akure, Ondo and Ilorin, which used to be around N50,000 in April, were fixed at N16,500 respectively.
These are the lowest fares in the industry when compared to current prices charged by other airlines operating in the country.
This decision seems to have forced Air Peace Airline, which is the acclaimed biggest airline in the country, to also reduce its fares across some destinations like Ilorin, and Abuja, just to mention a few. For instance, the airline slashed the airfare from Lagos to Ilorin (flight operations to Ilorin are slated to commence in June 2021) from N52,500, which some airlines charged last month, to N32,700.
Also, the fare from Lagos to Abuja has dropped from N60,000 (in April) to between N23,000 and N29,000.
Air Peace planned to “kick-off daily Abuja-Ilorin-Abuja and Lagos-Ilorin-Lagos flights on June 17, 2021. The new route further exemplifies the airline’s unwavering determination to interconnect various cities across Nigeria while filling the gaps in Nigeria’s air travel connectivity. The flying public can start booking on its website and mobile app.”