Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo says opening Nigeria’s skies to more domestic airlines is already forcing airfares down, and he expects the trend to continue as competition intensifies.
Speaking Thursday on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Keyamo said airfares that hit ₦400,000 to ₦500,000 during last Christmas have dropped to about ₦100,000.
“What did you pay during Christmas? Four hundred and something, five hundred thousand. What is it now? It’s a hundred and something. We are forcing it down by competition. We have opened the doors,” he said.
Keyamo said the sector is seeing an unprecedented wave of new entrants under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, unlike previous years when many domestic carriers struggled to survive. He pointed to Enugu Air’s recent entry and said Caliphate Airlines is preparing to launch commercial operations in Sokoto.
“Under the previous government, you have not seen this kind of surge we are having now into the airline business,” he said.
He credited Tinubu’s government with making local airline sustainability a policy priority. “It’s only President Bola Tinubu’s government that has made it a point, a one-point agenda, to support the sustenance of local airlines,” Keyamo said.
On aviation fuel costs, Keyamo said Jet A1 pricing falls under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, not his ministry, though he has held talks with fuel marketers on the issue. He blamed the recent spike partly on international market tensions, including those involving Iran, and said prices have started easing in recent weeks.
Keyamo described the Enugu Air runway excursion at Benin Airport as an isolated incident linked to a slippery runway, and urged Nigerians to await investigation results before drawing conclusions.
He also confirmed that a recent private jet incident in Asaba was a security breach. The pilot and crew have been taken into custody by the Department of State Services for questioning, he said, without giving further details.
Keyamo added that the Federal Government is considering concessioning more financially unviable airports to private investors to ease the burden on public finances and improve infrastructure, as part of broader reforms he says will make the industry stronger, safer and more competitive.
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