Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has announced that his ministry will assist domestic airlines in accessing aircraft at more affordable rates to help reduce ticket prices.
Keyamo made this known during an appearance on Arise TV on Sunday while reacting to the FCCPC allegation over Air Peace’s alleged encouragement of other airlines to increase fares.
Reacting to the development, Keyamo stated that the exchange rate impacts all areas of aviation, including simple maintenance like replacing a tire bolt, leading to high ticket prices.
He said, “What we are therefore doing is to ensure that we expose them to the market across the world where they can assess aircraft on very good terms. This will impact on the prices of tickets and their cost of operation.
“That is what led us to address the issue of the practice direction pursuant to the Cape Town Convention, that is the core of the problem of the aviation industry that this president and the vice president graciously supported us to get to.”
He also added that Nigeria will attend a major global aircraft meeting in January to tackle more aviation challenges.
“In January, all the airlines in Nigeria, all insurance companies including the National Insurance Commission and the National Assembly leadership on insurance and aviation are all going to Dublin between the 12th and the 18th.
“I’m leading the delegation, all the major aircraft financiers, and leasers are all gathered there and for the first time they have invited Nigeria.
“They invited us because efforts we have made to make them assess these markets around the world has increased our compliance score from 49 percent to 75.5 percent, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, all credit to the policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Our global score has gone up for the first time in history of Nigeria.”
