The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) on Wednesday appealed to the
Federal Government to rescind its decision to restrict supply of foreign
exchange to only bureaux de change in the country.
The President of AON, Capt. Nogie Meggison, made the appeal while addressing journalists in Lagos.
Meggisson
said the decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to supply
bureaux de change foreign exchange had restricted some business concerns
from having access to it.
He said that the CBN’s decision had created adverse effects on airline operations in the country.
“The exchange rate in the parallel market is going for as high as N305 per dollar
“As
we all know, foreign exchange is very difficult to access now. We met
the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, in November 2015 and he promised
us that he would look into it.
“About 80 per cent of aviation cost
is directly affected by this decision on foreign exchange. It affects
the buying of aviation fuel and spare parts, simulator training of
pilots and processing of insurance.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government because it is pretty difficult at this time; cost of operation is high,” he said.
According
to him, AON wants to partner the Federal Government on ways of
cushioning the effects of the policy on airline operations.
Meggison, however, debunked the rumour that airline operators were planning to hike air fares because of the development.
He
said: “No airline has hiked fares so far because we are feeling for
Nigerians, although the current exchange rate has risen to N305 to $1.
“It
is a free market and there is no law that restricts us from doing that
or not to do that, but because we feel for Nigerians we are sacrificing.
“Hiking
fare is not the issue right now because we are looking at how to
maximise whatever we have and give proper services to our passengers,”
he said.
