Nigerian airlines lost more than $200 million in revenue in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic grounded fleets and suppressed passenger demand, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in an assessment released on 8 April 2021.
The figure reflects the combined impact of the four-month closure of Nigerian airspace to commercial passenger traffic in the first half of 2020 and the slow, capped recovery that followed once domestic and international flights resumed later in the year. IATA said African carriers as a whole lost an estimated $8.5 billion in 2020, with Nigeria among the hardest-hit markets on the continent given its reliance on high-frequency domestic routes.
A Fragile Recovery
IATA's regional vice-president for Africa and the Middle East said Nigerian carriers had shown resilience in restarting operations but continued to face a difficult operating environment, citing foreign exchange scarcity, high aviation fuel costs, and multiple taxation as compounding factors on top of pandemic losses.
The association renewed its call on the Nigerian government to ease access to trapped airline revenues held in the country and to consider further relief measures, warning that a slow recovery in passenger confidence could extend the financial strain on local carriers well into 2021.
