Revenue from flight ticket sales in Nigeria was put at $151.09 million in the first four months of 2020, a 45 percent drop as against $282.36 million generated in the same quarter of 2019, it has been revealed.
The president of Nigerian Association of Travel Agencies (NANTA), Susan Akporiaye, disclosed this yesterday, Tuesday, during a briefing in Lagos, saying the drop was as a result of the flight restrictions and shutting of airports across the country in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19. Acording to her, in 2019, travel agencies recorded $57.79 million in January, $51.52 million in February, $80.55 million in March and $92.59 million in April, bringing it to a total of $282.36m.
In 2020, they recorded ticket sales of $70.03 million in January, $59.16 million in February, $23.26 million in March and a negative of $1.36 million in April, making it $151.09 million. She said that the second and third quarters of 2020 saw no revenue but by the fourth quarter, there was a gradual increase in revenue following the lifting of flight restrictions.
“To get hold of our members and situate a situation favourable to a possible rebound of the industry, we engaged in training and retraining of our members, knowing that it might not be business as usual once we were clear from the pandemic.
Our members were beginning to experience challenges and with the initial lockdown, border and airspace closure and banning of travellers to some parts of the world, particularly targeting Nigerians, we knew we had to think out of the box and give our members hope, opportunities and strength to remain focused,” she said.
However, the association expressed displeasure at the refusal of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make foreign exchange available for the payment of its annual dues to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
NANTA’s Financial Secretary, Daisi Olotu, alleged that for the past three months, the CBN has frustrated the association’s efforts to get $50,000 forex to pay its annual dues without which IATA would cut off access to travel agents which would in turn adversely affect their business.
“The reason for the funds is to pay our annual dues to IATA and if the dues are not paid, they would terminate our license immediately, not because you are owing the airlines one kobo. IATA is the one managing the gap between the agents and the airlines, that is their fee and they do not joke with the annual dues. If it is due on a certain day and you don’t pay, they cut you off. We had gathered the money together on time from all the agents because we didn’t want to be paying individually. We decided that we would put the annual dues together and send it to our bank so that they would transfer the funds on our behalf to IATA which is more orderly.
“We got the money from all our members and sent to UBA and it has been in the bank for more than three months. We requested for about $50,000 or $60,000 for the payment annual dues of all the travel agents in Nigeria and they came back giving us $4,000. You can confirm for yourself, this is verifiable information. UBA now told us that they would continue to bid for us until they are able to cover the amount we need. We had to inform IATA about the situation and they understood because they also needed to move some money and the bank was not able to do it for them.
“Does it mean the CBN cannot provide $50,000 to travel agents to pay their annual dues? The reason the bank gave us was that they bid through the CBN and the CBN would only give you a percentage of the amount bided,” Olotu said.
Daily Sun reached out to the Acting Director, Corporate Communications of the CBN, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi, to comment on the allegations but at the time of filing this report, there was no official response.
