The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has earned over $16.98 million as ticket sales charge (TSC) from international and more than N9.16 billion from local airlines between the months of January to August t 2018.
The director general of NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman who disclosed this in Lagos said the agency will realise more by year end as passenger traffic increases.
He said air travel demand as projected by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will continue to grow with more connectivity.
“There has always been that projection that aviation in Africa is growing and the rate of growth is one of the highest in the world. We lack that internal connectivity within the African region and once those sectors are developed you would see much more increase in the movement because for example, if you want to go to Niger as of today, you hardly have any direct link even though airlines have been designated.
One of the ways of going there is to go to Lome and then go to Niamey when from Abuja it shouldn’t be more than one hour. You spend a whole day…and of cause at a cost; you have to go to Lome through ASKY Airlines and maybe take you either direct to Niamey or when they are coming back they go through Burkina Faso and so on. But once we start having this connectivity direct, the cost would also be expected to reduce and then more people would be able to afford to fly. So, it is expected that the increase would continue”.
NCAA also said passenger traffic in the last months hit 2.4 million.
International passenger traffic from January-August show that 10 of the airlines dominated with Ethiopian airline taking the lead with over 134, 104; Emirates, 107, 217; British Airways, 86, 249 and Turkish airlines,70, 392 passengers.
Others were Air France, 70, 144; KLM Royal Dutch, 63, 990; Virgin Atlantic, 63, 448; Delta Airline,39, 196; Qatar, 38, 706 and South African Airways, 36, 868 passengers.
For the domestic passenger Traffic, seven airlines dominated with Air Peace taking the lead with 340, 664, Dana Air, 330, 370; AZMAN Air, 245, 437; Arik Air, 177.061; Med-View, 156, 226; Aero, 138,146 and Overland, 78, 166 passengers.
Usman also said there had been boost in travel activities since the country came out of recession and more is expected in the coming days and months.
“Yes certainly, it is going up. Don’t forget that we came out of recession, during the recession so many things happened. Now the economy is out of recession…so people are being more empowered…we should expect even more,” he said.
