As a result of Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis, some foreign airlines have decided to relocate their ticketing and sales offices to Ghana, resulting in a soar in cost of air fares on some foreign routes.
This was as Spanish national carrier, Iberia Airlines said it would suspend its Lagos-Madrid operation from May 12, 2016.
Leading the pack of airlines that have moved ticketing base out of Nigeria are United and Delta Airlines as well as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
With this development intending travellers to the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) on these airlines now have to get their tickets through sales outlets in Ghana where the airlines now consider a safe haven for their businesses.
Travellers are not finding the new development exciting at all, as they now have to pay more buying tickets in Ghana, sometimes more than 30 per cent the cost of air tickets they would have bought in the country.
A travel agent, Ms. Ijeoma Ekpe, speaking to Daily Sun said:
“Delta and United are not selling tickets at all from Lagos. They have shut down for now. You can only get them online but payment in naira can pose a challenge.”
“What we do at present for passengers is to route their travel through Ghana. And I tell you, air fares on these airlines have all gone up,” she added.
But Medview Airlines, a local carrier that plies the Lagos-London route appears the greatest beneficiary of the ongoing crisis as it has experienced an upsurge in passenger patronage on the London route. High cost of tickets on the American and European carriers that have relocated to Ghana has forced most passengers flying to London to look the way of Medview.
It was learnt that the decision to halt further financial transactions in Nigeria by some foreign airlines was due to some difficulties they had experienced in the last 10 months with the repatriation of funds or incomes made in Nigeria to their parent companies or overseas accounts due to foreign currency crunches.
-Credit: Sun online
An opportunity for a local airline to grow it’s revenue. Perhaps others like Aero can also take that step too. A pity most people prefer the foreign airlines
A child learns to crawl before walking! So to think our present local airlines can immediately replace the foreign airlines is nothing but mere wishful thinking. How many of our local airlines are allowed in US & other western countries or how many can even compete with foreign airlines’ services today?? Not to even mention that most of the plane crashes in Nigeria are by local airlines. What about further unemployment and negative effect on the already terrible economy this departure to Ghana will inevitably cost us??? Again, another pointer to the confusion of the administration!!!