By Chinelo Obogo
The Aviation Safety Roundtable Initiative has said that the solution to Nigeria’s aviation fuel problem can be solved by allocating crude oil directly to local refiners. In a statement by the body’s President, Air Commodore Ademola Onitiju (rtd), the body said if the government does this, it can cut waste, reduce its own cost exposure, and bring stability to a sector that has resisted it for decades.
It said: “The Nigerian domestic aviation sector currently faces a profound and protracted crisis driven primarily by the escalating cost of Jet A1 fuel, which has remained between N1,650 and N2,037 per litre. This single factor has pushed fuel to nearly half of total airline operating expenses and has forced domestic carriers to raise fares to levels that many Nigerians can no longer afford.
“Rather than to frontally tackle this urgent challenge, the Federal Government has already given away N60 billion in invoice discounts to airlines with no measurable benefit to the industry or the travelling public. The defects are palpable as Jet A1 prices have remained unchanged, airline debts have not reduced and neither have we seen passengers enjoy cheaper fares. The cargo logistics,tourism and hospitality sectors have not experienced growth.
“The aviation ecosystem which is made up of airlines, agencies, concessionaires, ground handlers, received no structural relief from that hollow N60 billion largesse. The ASRTI has therefore recommended a more effective and fiscally responsible alternative. The body said this proposal seeks to focus exclusively on domestic operators and is achievable through the allocation of crude oil directly to local refiners in a Fuel‑for‑Stability Programme which eliminates the N60 billion waste, reduces the government’s cost exposure, and creates a stable fuel‑pricing structure that immediately transforms the economics of the sector.
NIt said whether the final feasible fuel price is N300 or slightly above is not the issue instead the strategy is to emplace a stable, predictable supply of crude to local refiners in order to dramatically lower operating costs, enable lower fares, higher passenger traffic, more profitable airlines, stronger aviation agencies, and a healthier fiscally backed ecosystem.
N”Lower air fares are not restricted to consumer benefits, they are catalysts for market expansion, passenger traffic growth, higher load factors and the economies of scale that make the business of commercial aviation sustainable.
N”A nation of over 220 million people should not continually operate an aviation market accessible only to a narrow segment of its population. Reduced airfares will result in a natural expansion of the market and sustainable sectoral growth.
N”This approach is pragmatic and not theoretical. India achieved some of the lowest domestic fares in the world and explosive traffic growth by stabilizing fuel supply and prioritizing structural reforms. Turkey, Indonesia, and Brazil also transformed their aviation sectors by focusing on affordability, volume growth, and ecosystem‑wide efficiency, not piecemeal interventions that deliver no lasting value,” it said.
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