“In reality, the number of people who travel by air has definitely dropped and it has dropped by estimated 30 percent,” George said in an interview.
He said the situation is gradually improving but remains far below where it was before the crash.
“It is coming back gradually but it is no way where it should be. People say it is just a few airlines flying, so it should be nice and easy, which is not the case. The fact remains that the market has dropped and there are issues there. What we see is the saying that time heals; we do hope that it will come back gradually. Hopefully things will be brighter in future,” George said.
Analysts say that the drop in passenger traffic may indicate that Nigerians are yet to come out of the traumatic plane crash which killed at least 150 people.
The repeated broadcast of the crash on national television, the splashed images of the plane’s wreckage in newspapers as well as insinuations that Nigerian planes are flying coffins, seem to have scared many passengers away from the skies.
As a result, many Nigerians who used to board planes now travel by road.
George also explained that besides high cost of aviation fuel, air fares have hit the roof because taxes have gone up instead of coming down as demanded by the ailing airlines.
“It has gone up because the taxes have also gone up. NCAA’s (Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority) five percent on ticket sales has been extended to fuel surcharge, which was not there before. So if you are clamouring for the taxes to go down and they are increasing it, so instead of getting better the situation is getting worse,” George said.
He explained that with poor infrastructure, airlines only operate between 6 am to 6 pm, which limits airlines’ revenue generation capacity.
Nobody wan die!
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