Group seeks tax holiday for Air Peace amidst price war

The National Civil Society Council of Nigeria (NCSCN) has urged the Federal Government to consider granting tax waiver to Air Peace amidst ongoing price competition among foreign airline operators in Nigeria.
Executive Director of NCSCN, Blessing Akinlosotu, in a statement on Wednesday said the pricing war was orchestrated by the entry of Air Peace into the Lagos-London Route.
Akinlosotu said the recent launch of Lagos-London flight by the airline at a highly reduced rate had shockingly exposed the long years of exploitations of Nigerian travelers by foreign operators and bigger players.
This, according to him, has triggered a pricing war to outwit each other.
He recalled that foreign operators had for decades, monopolised the high traffic and profitable Lagos -London route, taking undue advantage of Nigerian travelers who paid costliest fares in Africa, while other countries paid much lower rates for same destination.
According to him, an operator such as Turkish airlines charges for the economy class ticket for the Lagos-Istanbul route rose up to N874,661 while the business class ticket jumped to N1,980,876.
“Nigerian travelers experienced same with other foreign operators such as British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Lufthansa, KLM/Air France, Air Maroc and Ethiopian Airlines.
“Before the foreign operators conspired to increase fares, the economy class tickets on the Nigeria-UK route was between N400,000 and N650,000, depending on the booking period while business class was between N800,000 and N1.2 million,” he said.
Akinlosotu said the commencement of Air Peace flights to London had further exposed the exploitation, adding that the foreign carriers, out of fears of losing their Nigerian passengers to Air Peace, had engaged in price wars for survival.
According to him, NCSCN discovered that majority of the foreign operators on the Lagos/London destination have now drastically slashed fares to the point of charging lower than the Air Peace.(NAN)