Nigerian domestic airlines cancelled large portions of their schedules in the final week of May 2015 as a nationwide fuel shortage, aggravated by a strike among oil tanker drivers, brought much of the country's transport and power infrastructure to a standstill.
Aero Contractors, one of the country's larger private carriers, cancelled around 80 percent of its flights, according to a spokesperson for the airline. Passengers reported that international flights operated by carriers including Air France and Kenya Airways were forced to divert to Dakar and Cotonou to refuel en route to Paris and Nairobi respectively, after finding no available fuel supply in Lagos.
A Crisis Rooted in Import Dependence
The shortage underlined a structural vulnerability that would recur repeatedly in later years: despite producing more than two million barrels of crude oil a day, Nigeria imports the great majority of its refined petroleum products, including aviation fuel, because of insufficient domestic refining capacity. The crisis in May 2015 began in the weeks before that year's presidential election, as oil marketers faced tightened credit lines amid a slump in global oil prices, a weakening naira, and unpaid government debts that suppliers said amounted to close to a billion dollars.
Beyond the Airports
The disruption extended well beyond aviation, silencing radio stations reliant on diesel generators and emptying Lagos's normally congested roads as petrol stations shut their pumps. For Nigerian aviation specifically, the episode was an early and severe illustration of how fuel supply chain problems, distinct from any single airline's operational or financial failings, could ground a meaningful share of the country's domestic flight network within the space of days.