…blame regulators for hikes in chargesÂ
Several Nigerians have expressed their displeasures against the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Air Peace airline, Mr. Allen Onyema, for attempting to justify recent hike in the price of airfares across the country.
Following widespread backlashes against airlines operating in the Nigeria including his airline over exorbitant rates, the AirPeace boss had, during a media chat, explained what he described as reasons for the hikes.
According to Onyema: “Let’s take the Southeast for instance. When you fly to the Southeast at this period, you’re coming back almost empty. Who pays for the cost of that aircraft coming back?”.
Reacting to his explanations, Nigerians who took to their different social media platforms to puncture Onyema’s claims, also blamed the airline regulators for not checking the excesses of their operators.
Some of the reactions as captured by our Correspondents are hereunder presented:
“Sir Onyema, when you bring passengers to South East and are worried of flying back empty, announce that people coming to Abuja by road should pay the price of bus and come enter your airline, at least make you no for empty and make small money still come out from the trip” – Tefu MeMor
“it’s only in Nigeria we hear all this nonsense excuses, in the western world no body talk about this rubbish” -Dunstan Ezeh
“That’s a crappy explanation I flew return flight in November to Owerri at about N198,000 that’s about N97,000 for one way. So if you are returning empty why don’t you charge 198,000 that I paid in for return in November for one way in December? But rather it went as high as N350,000 for one way. How does one explain it? – Ezekiel Bala
“I boarded 375k from Abuja to owerri. This man no get joy at all” – Donatus Alexander
“tell me what can justify hiking a fare from 150k to 500k.
their is absolutely no justification for it sir” – Ugoh Stanley
“Well its the failure of the regulatory agency and the airlines took advantage of this, yes fares go up worldwide but not a criminal hike like we have in Nigeria ….you can’t justify a flight ticket of #150k jumping to #500k so oyeama talk is rubbish” – Tunde Adekunle
“I disagree with your statement” – Emmanuel James
“This is the actually the absence of government & bribed regulatory agency. The man was illiterately ranting rubbish in the studio. Airfare in the western world is relatively cheap and regulated! This is the height of mischief and daylight robbery to distressed citizens….” – Uduak Esang
“The very reason why all these monopolistic Mafia cartels in Nigerian business will never welcome or allow very perfectly manage government owned airlines or any other business at that to compete favourably with theirs and become very successful, so that they will keep waking up any moment they like and keep fixing outrageous prices at the detriment of Nigerians they took advantage of. Tell him about Qata Air, Kenya Airways, Air France, British Airways and the likes own by other Nations. What happened to Nigeria Airways before now and even the recently nurse Air Nigeria in partnership with Ethiopia Airlines, that was kill before it even birth through court cases. You can’t tell me government provide all the necessary infrastructures in the aviation sector and you are only coming in with Aeroplanes be it passenger or cargo to charge such an autrageous prices even when prices of aviation fuel and dollar are showing downward trends and you are here defending market forces when you don’t even have sufficiency in Aeroplanes but allow others to bring in Aeroplanes in abundance which is what will reduce the fares, you won’t. Tell me why the fares and racketeering in fares will stop when you only have few planes with high passenger demands.Look, until our mindset change for us to know that government businesses can be perfectly manage successfully, then we will keep going round this circle on individuals manning our Economy with high handedness monopolistic tendencies instead of the economic system working for the benefit of all citizens”. – Utibe Inam
To be continued…
