The Nigerian aviation industry, travel agencies are devising creative ways of remaining in business as the scarcity of dollar keep affecting their daily operations. The agencies are now partnering with their counterparts in China, United States of America and Europe to buy flight tickets for intending international travelers from the country, Punch gathered.
This move is as a result of the bearing scarcity of dollars in the country, which has forced foreign airlines to raise airfares by over 200 per cent, with some now accepting only dollars as the means of payment for flight tickets.
In the last one year, over 25 foreign airlines flying into Nigeria have been unable to repatriate over N300bn ticket sales proceeds to their home countries, as the Central Bank of Nigeria continues to ration foreign exchange to commercial banks for sale to users.
In order to minimize the forex risks, the foreign carriers have raised their airfares sharply, with an average return ticket to Europe now going for between N600,000 and N800,000 instead of the previous N180,000 to N250,000 depending on the season.
An average return flight to North America now costs over N1m, from between N300,000 and N400,000, while the Middle East carriers are still relatively cheap. An official of one the airlines explained, “Most travel agencies now partner other agencies in North America, China and Europe to issue tickets to our customers here in Nigeria.
“In other words, most of the tickets Nigerians traveling overseas are carrying were issued in America, China or Europe by travel agencies in those countries.
“All we do is to give the travel agencies abroad the names of our customers, and they write the tickets and send them to us. We will then print and give to our customers.”
Elderson Osakwe, who works with a Lagos-based travel agency, said that the agencies embarked on this measure in order to overcome the difficulties of obtaining tickets for their customers locally. It was learnt that buying the tickets from partner travel agencies overseas made them a little bit cheaper than those issued in Nigeria.
However, the development is coming few weeks after Delta Airlines and United Airlines, the two American carriers flying into Nigeria, stopped ticket sales in the country.
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