Director of Consumer Protection Directorate, Adamu Abdullahi says the scarcity of aviation fuel would continue until the government begins to refine the product locally.
From your own experience, what is the reaction of the passengers over this protracted aviation fuel scarcity, known as Jet A1?
Okay, let me talk from my own personal experience. Yesterday I had Dana Air booking by 6:30 pm to Lagos from Abuja. As at 2:00 pm the flight was moved from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. I was at the airport by 6:00 pm, waiting for my flight. Around 7:00 pm I got another message from the public speaker system at the airport that the flight had been moved to 9:00 pm. So I didn’t have a choice, I had to wait because I knew it was beyond the power of the airline.
What is happening is that there is aviation fuel shortage in the country. Since government decided to deregulate the importation of fuel, it also affected the importation of Jet A1 and therefore the product is scarce. We don’t refine it locally. Kaduna and Warri refineries used to refine Jet A1 in this country and they don’t do so anymore. Now we depend solely on importation.
So for oil markers to go to the black market and buy dollar at N380 per dollar, it is very, very expensive and by the time you bring your product to the country it is no longer economically viable. As you know, aviation fuel constitutes about 70 to 75 per cent of cost of the ticket you buy. So by the time the cost of aviation is added to the ticket we are in trouble. So airlines are doing business at a very, very expensive rate because their major cost of operation, which is aviation fuel has gone up by over 150 percent.
So if you buy aviation fuel at N200 per litre to operate. It is too expensive. So what we are experiencing now is that marketers are not willing to go ahead and import fuel at that price. We are already paying about 50 percent more on our ticket prices. By the time it gets worse that we would pay N50, 000 for one-hour flight in Nigeria that is when we are going to really experience difficulties.
What we are saying is that passengers have to really calm down and understand what the airlines are facing, in the same manner that we went to filling stations and queued for upward of 24 hours to get fuel. That is what is happening in the aviation industry today. It is beyond the power of the airline, it is beyond the power of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) so people have to understand.
And even in the regulations, it says that once the airline can prove that the delay or cancellation of flight was beyond their own control then all their obligations would not apply. So even the refreshment, the hotel accommodations they are supposed to give do not apply here because this is force majure. So NCAA has come out with a position that passengers have to understand what the airlines are going through and exercise a lot of restraint because what is happening is beyond the power of the airlines.
Let me also talk about the issue of fuel supply to the airlines. All airlines have agreement with their marketers. They may request for fuel for one week after which they reconcile with the marketers and then pay. But when the supplier does not have the product, the airline it serves will now start running around for the marketer that will supply it fuel. That supplier will have to satisfy their own customers first before they supply the later. In that situation, it becomes a waiting game. The supplier will tell you, you will get fuel in the next one hour, they may call you and alert you of further delay and you continue to wait. This is allowed in aviation. It is when the fuel does not come that the airline cancels flight. When the product does not come there is really nothing the airline can do. The passenger has to go home and come back tomorrow for the flight. The passengers have to exercise restraint because these are trying times for the country.
NCAA initially directed the airlines to inform passengers not to come for flights when they know that they won’t source aviation for such flights?
We buy our tickets online and buy them in advance because we know it is cheaper. If we buy our tickets one month, one week before our trip the airline would not know that they would be fuel scarcity by the time we would be travelling. So you have booked your ticket two weeks in advance, one week in advance and then there is no fuel. Now, how can you hold the airline responsible?
But if you as passenger arrives the airport late before your flight you will have to pay a surcharge. If you are the one who does not come to the airport on time you are charged, so how come that when the airline fails no one charges the airline? However, it does not work like that as I told you earlier. Everything in aviation works on plans. There is nothing an airline can do when it cannot take fuel to operate its flights.
There was indication that passengers billed to travel would become frustrated and angry and some of them would get into fighting with airline officials. Did you witness that when you were at the airport?
Not really because I had to step in to interface with the people. There was a politician from Niger Republic that led members of Representatives of that country to Nigeria and whose flight was delayed, from 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm. She was travelling from Abuja to Kano from where she would connect flight to Niger. At 7:00 pm there was announcement that the flight had been delayed for another two hours. That means that she would travel to Kano and arrive there about 12 mid-night.
Later there was another announcement that the aircraft that was billed for the flight would arrive 9:35 pm. I calculated that the best that could happen was that they would Abuja to Kano about 10 pm in the night, arrive Kano around 11 pm and then she was going to continue her journey. There was no way she would leave Kano by that time to Niger, so we had to intervene. I went to the Azman official whose flight she bought the ticket, and explained to him about her predicament. Although you cannot hold the airline liable in this situation but all the same, the airline official decided to provide her accommodation for the night in Kano. The following morning she left for Niger.
What we really encourage airlines to do and what they do overseas is for them to treat their customers well so that they will have loyal customers, so that they would not fly any other airline apart from yours. If an airline has loyal customers its operations will boom because they will trust in the airline and believe it is a good airline.
Is there any plan that in the nearest future the refineries would start refining the product locally because that is the only solution?
Government said before the end of the year Jet A1 will be refined locally. We have the capacity for local refining of the product. If we are able to do it in our country it will be better and it will cost less. As I told you earlier, 70 percent of the cost of airline operation is fuel and once the price of fuel comes down the cost of tickets will come down and all of us will be happier for it.
How is the fuel scarcity and poor flight operations affecting the economy of the country?
We are coming out with a statement in NCAA to persuade passengers to understand this situation that is beyond airlines’ control. Air transport plays major role in the economy of this country. Most business transactions depend on aviation. That as top businessman you are travelling to Port Harcourt, to Abuja, to Lagos is dependent on air transport because the roads are not there. So everybody depends on air transport to take to wherever he wants to go and do business. So the fact that flights are being delayed, flights are being cancelled means that we are going to have issues. We do have issues. People should plan ahead. Book your flights in advance. You are billed to go to Abuja Monday, do not wait to go on Monday; travel on Friday to ensure that you meet your appointment.
This is a passing phase. It won’t last forever. Government knows what is going on. Government is aware and it is working hard to relief people of this suffering. So people should exercise restraint and understand that this will come to pass. There have been such issues like power failure, scarcity of petrol and others but those things are coming back; like now I have electricity in my house. So things are getting better and they will continue to improve in the nearest future.
So by banging on the counters of the airlines, by holding the airline staff to ransom do not solve the problem because such actions will not make the airline to fly. Airlines cannot put water in the aircraft to fly it; the fuel is not just there, so passengers should understand with the airlines and I am hopeful things will get better in the nearest future.
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