The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), an umbrella body representing the country's domestic carriers, announced on Saturday that member airlines would suspend all domestic flight operations nationwide from Monday, 9 May 2022, citing an unsustainable spike in the cost of Jet A1 aviation fuel.
The association said the price of Jet A1 had risen from around ₦190 to ₦700 per litre in a short period, a nearly fourfold increase that it attributed to the global surge in crude oil prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. The AON said the increase had pushed the cost of a one-hour domestic flight to roughly ₦120,000, a level it described as unsustainable for both airlines and passengers.
Airlines' Position
"No airline in the world can absorb this kind of sudden shock from such an astronomical rise over a short period," the AON said in its statement, adding that continuing to operate at current fuel prices was no longer commercially viable for its members. The association said airlines would discontinue nationwide operations until further notice, pending relief on fuel costs.
The Ministry of Aviation responded by urging airlines to consider the wider impact of a shutdown on Nigerian and international travellers, while the country's consumer protection agency also called on carriers to weigh the hardship a suspension would cause for passengers already grappling with broader economic pressures.
Broader Context
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, imports the bulk of its refined petroleum products, including aviation fuel, due to long-standing underinvestment in domestic refining capacity. That dependence on imports has repeatedly left the country's airlines exposed to global price swings largely outside their control, a vulnerability that the events of the past week brought into sharp focus.
The suspension threatened significant disruption to domestic connectivity in a country where air travel plays an outsized role in connecting cities separated by long, often insecure road journeys.
