Scarcity of aviation fuel facing the industry was yesterday pegged at 50 per cent, a reduction of the daily requirement needed by local airlines to operate in the country.

The shortfall, which has left operators with no option than to ration supply at the ramp, account for series of delays and cancelled flight facing passengers.

This is coming as marketers have blamed the current development on scarcity of foreign exchange, logistics and some of the airline operators owing outstanding billions of naira and allegedly not willing to pay suppliers of aviation fuel, otherwise called JetA1.

General Manager of CITA Aviation Fueling Limited, Thomas Ogungbangbe, at the opening of a stakeholders’ forum on the fuel challenge, said that of about two million litres aviation fuel required daily, only half the size now get to the operators.

The abysmally low supply capacity, according to Ogungbangbe, calls for great concern for stakeholders to rescue the industry from further losses.

He observed that the capacity had steadily declined in the last three years since deregulation of supply, though currently now at its most critical moment.

The Guardian gathered that Jet A1 constitutes between 40 and 50 per cent of the airlines’ direct operating costs, with untold effect on the performance and profit of domestic airline operators.

General Manager and Chief Operating Officer at CITA, Olasimbo Betiku, observed that the current state of the economy and scarcity of foreign exchange had caught up with the aviation fuel that is 100 per cent imported.

Besides forex, Betiku added that the lack of commensurate development in infrastructure along with population rise and growth in passenger movement in the last two decades had steadily put the industry in dire strait.

He said: “Between 1986 to 2016, we have seen steady population growth in the country with passenger movement increase from 8.3m (2006) to 13.4 (in 2016).