National Civil Society Council of Nigeria (NCSCN) has advocated a one-year tax waiver for Air Peace along the Lagos-London route as the pricing war among airline operators in Nigeria persists.
Executive Director of the group, Blessing Akinlosotu, said the recent entry of the airline into the Lagos-London route at a highly reduced rate has exposed long years of exploitation of Nigerians by international airlines.
The group advocated that Air Peace should be given the waiver to encourage and enable it to sustain its flawless service to Nigerians, describing the airline as a patriot and devoted nation-builder.
“Recall that Air Peace had recently commenced international flight operations from Lagos to London at a highly reduced rate, which shockingly exposed the long years of exploitations of Nigerian travellers by foreign operators and bigger players, which has triggered a pricing war to outwit one another.
“Before the launching of Air Peace to the Lagos-London route, foreign operators had, for decades, monopolised this high traffic and very profitable route, taking undue advantage of countless thousands of Nigerian travellers, subjecting them to pay costliest fares in Africa, while other countries pay much lower rates for the same destination,” the statement reads.
According to the group, the majority of foreign operators on the Lagos-London destination have now drastically slashed fares to the point of charging lower than the Air Peace, just to run the patriotic indigenous operator out of business, and thereafter return to the price hike regime.
Akinlosotu pointed out that many Airlines were today forced to lure passengers to book an economy class seat on the Lagos-London route with N907,782 fares as against the over N2 million for the economy they charged before now.
