Experts Reveal Key Driver Of Nigeria’s Air Passenger Decline

…Warn Airports May Deteriorate Due To Low Use

LAGOS – Players in the Nigerian aviation industry have expressed worries over the contin­uous drop in the number of domestic passengers in recent years, pointing at the economic hardship in the country as a major culprit.

The experts said that the combination of economic downturn, poor airport in­frastructure and multifaceted charges and taxes have further compounded the woes of the nation’s aviation industry.

Recent data obtained from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) indi­cated that passenger movement in 2024, declined to 15,655,273 through the local and international airports in the country.

On the international scene, the sector recorded a total of 4,135,830 passengers as inbound and outbound.

For the domestic scene, the nation’s 15 scheduled operators recorded 11, 549,443 passengers.

Further breakdown showed that for the inbound passengers on the interna­tional scene, Nigeria recorded 2,018,948, while the outbound was 2,116,882.

Passenger traffic in Nigeria has continued to nosedive in the domestic and international scenes, except in 2022 when the country recorded 16.7 million passengers, including 12 million local travels.

The number of domestic air travellers in 2021 stood at 13,006,481, indicating 6,533,740 inbound and 6,472,741 outbound.

In 2022, a total of 16.172,433 pas­sengers passed through Nigerian airports, encompassing both do­mestic and international travel.

The breakdown of the 2022 travels, showed 12 million do­mestic passengers, while the oth­er four million passengers were international passengers.

For 2023 travels, there were 15,895,265 passengers in and out of the country, out of which 12.05 million were domestic air travel­ers.

For the 2024 figures, domes­tic travellers fell to 11, 549,443 passengers from 12.05 million in the previous year indicating 4.8 percent drop.

Also, July’s statistics released by the National Bureau of Statis­tics (NBS), indicated that the Ni­gerian aviation sector was valued at N258.9 billion in the rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP), showing a sector reeling in un­derperformance and struggling to remain afloat.

The sum was the worth of the industry captured as Air Trans­port in the GDP data as of 2024.

The statistics indicated that the economy grew by 3.13 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from the 2.27 percent recorded in the same period in 2024.

In 2019, the rebased nominal GDP at market prices stood at N205.09 trillion, N213.64 trillion in 2020, N243.30 trillion in 2021, N274.23 trillion in 2022, N314.02 trillion in 2023, and N372.82 tril­lion in 2024.

According to the NBS data, air transportation was valued at N258.9 billion in 2024, which trans­lated to $169.3 million.

In 2023, the sector was valued at N215.6 billion; N178.4 billion in 2022; 145.5 billon in 2021, N101.1 bil­lion in 2020, which was the year of the pandemic and N222.4 billion in 2019.

Speaking as a panelist at a conference organised by the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) in Lagos over the weekend, Mr. Chris Aligbe, the Chief Execu­tive Officer (CEO), Belujane Kon­sult, said that the recent economic downturn contributed hugely to the continuous passenger decline in the sector.

He warned that the incessant decline in passenger figure could affect airline’s performance, adding that the airports too irre­spective of the amount of money spent on them for construction, reconstruction or renovation would not save it from experienc­ing dilapidation.

He said: “Thank God we are modernising our airports. If flights are not going there, the air­ports will deteriorate and that is what is happening in our country. So, I think that if we don’t buoy up our airlines, we will not get to where we are going to be.

“No airport in this country will become a hub, that we depend on a foreign airline to survive. No foreign airline can build a hub in your country. I studied about 25-35 hubs. Those hubs are built by the airlines of their country.

“Yes, we have economic chal­lenges today and there is an eco­nomic downturn. That is why passengers are declining. And if passengers are declining, the airlines have major problems and that is what we are seeing. The airports will have the same problem. We are upgrading our airports, which is good.

“You can build a world-class airport. Other airlines will come into it, but if you don’t have your airline, we will never have a hub in our country. So, I think that we are in a vicious circle. And we need to break this vicious circle. And the breaking point is the airline.”

Also, Engr. Femi Adeniji, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the US-based aircraft brokerage, Nigame Aircraft Consultancy, at­tributed the reduced passengers to high cost of tickets, unreliable flight schedules, delays and can­cellations.

Adeniji explained that with the current unreliable schedules of the domestic airlines, no busi­ness person could schedule meet­ings using the scheduled carriers.

He, however, said that the current scheduled carriers were inadequate for the estimated 200 million population of the country.

To attract more air travelers to the industry, Adeniji advocated waivers on parts duty for the air­lines, incentives in different areas to operators, easy accessibility to maintenance, repair and over­haul (MRO) facilities and parts depot.

He believes that all these would drive down the escalated airline tickets as the need for for­eign exchange by the operators would drop.

He said: “High cost of airline tickets, which is dependent on the exchange rates, is one of the fac­tors responsible for high airfares and the continuous drop in the number of air passengers. Also, despite the high cost, you cannot rely on the airlines’ schedule. So, you are better off taking the road risk.

“Benefits such as waivers on parts duty for the airlines, incen­tives in different areas to opera­tors, easy accessibility to MRO in the country and others will drive down the escalated airline tick­ets because the need for foreign exchange by the airliners would reduce.

“These will encourage the air­lines to reduce prices and main­tenance reliability of the aircraft will increase, thereby preventing delay and cancellations and en­sure passengers increase.”

Also, Mr. George Uriesi, the Acting Managing Director of Ibom Air, recently raised the alarm over depleting passenger figures, saying this was a major cause for concern.

The Ibom Air boss confirmed that traffic had been dwindling since 2022, warning that the sit­uation was getting worse and efforts must be made to attract more passengers to fly.

He said: “We are down by 27 percent from 2024. We are in trou­ble, we have to find a way to get people flying again.”

He advised that for the sector to witness the right traffic, it was pertinent for the airport man­agers to work with airlines to remain in business.

He insisted that in the avia­tion ecosystem, the driver was the airline, maintaining that no one would earn any amount of money if the airlines did not fly.

“Everybody talks about mon­ey because airlines are flying,” he added.

Besides, Mr. Olumide Ohu­nayo, Director, Research, Zenith Travels, said that the recent ad­ditions, NG Eagle, Rano Air and others, lacked large capacity to make an impact in the industry.

Ohunayo expressed that the lack of capacity was responsible for the discontinuation of daily flights to some airports in the country by indigenous carriers.

He, however, refused to blame the airlines for the drop, rather advised the government and its agencies to firm up the economy and introduce programmes that would encourage more air travel­ers into the industry.

He said: “In the domestic mar­ket, one or two airlines tried to launch, we have NG Eagle, Rano Air and these ones didn’t come with large capacity and their im­pact was not really felt until today.

“The airline industry is not operating in isolation. Remem­ber that the naira spirals out of control due to the floating of the naira to the dollar, which was also exacerbated by the removal of subsidy on fuel. This brought about inflation in almost every index of the sectors of the econ­omy. The purchasing power was reduced.”

Capt. Ado Sanusi, the CEO, Aero Contractors, noted that the passenger traffic had been in de­cline in Nigeria in recent years despite the addition of more airlines.

He pointed out that the move­ment of passengers reflects the economic activities of any country, stressing that if the eco­nomic activities of the country had slowed down, the movement would also be impacted negative­ly.