The COVID-19 pandemic has affected businesses and industries in Nigeria and around the world, particularly the travel industry. Last year, the invasion of the pandemic halted air travels and grounded airlines, resulting in massive losses for the aviation industry. And though borders have reopened with safety and inoculation protocols in place, the aviation industry is still far from recovery.
The air passenger market analysis released by the International Air Transport Association in April revealed that recovery in air travel remains uneven and that traffic fell 65.4 percent in comparison with April 2019. The analysis further states that this was a moderate improvement compared to the previous month when RPKs (Revenue Passenger Kilometers) were down 66.9 percent down in March 2021. In a chart presented in the analysis, air passenger volumes ran as high as 800 billion industrial RPKs per month in 2019 but are currently running at 250 billion industrial RPKs per month in 2021.
With the summer drawing near, major international airlines including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Delta, British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa and Air France have said they will be returning to the Nigerian air space on the 12th of July 2021. Flight stakeholders are relieved to announce that summer travels and tourists can enjoy competitive rates from foreign airlines available on all popular routes.
With an air travel market that reaches about 12 million on annual traffic just before the COVID-19 outbreak, where five million are international travellers, large operators make plans to stimulate cross-route demands in Nigeria. The larger part of the traffic is expected from Lagos, the largest city in Africa, which is almost nine of 10 or 86 percent of the country’s international chair.
It is the hope of many that the summer rush will be the start of a market recovery in the air space and stabilization of air travel. If the summer rush delivers as good as it promises, it would…