Foreign airlines have drastically reduced their costs on the Lagos-London route to compete with Air Peace, which recently commenced flight operations on the route.
Air Peace started direct flights from Lagos to London on March 30, pegging its price for a round-trip economy ticket at N1.2m on a route that foreign airlines had charged as much as N3m to fly passengers on.
The move by the Nigerian airline had seen foreign airlines cut their airfares to an average of ₦1.4m for a round-trip economy ticket last week, an action experts and stakeholders had anticipated.
Checks on Wednesday showed that some foreign airlines have further slashed their price to an average of ₦841,732, according to reports from Channels Television.
At the Central Bank of Nigeria’s exchange rate of N1246/$1, checks on prices by most of the flights, as of Wednesday, show that Egyptair has dropped its Lagos-London economy ticket price further to ($470) ₦585,620. Air Peace London to Lagos now goes for ($655) ₦816, 130, British Airways goes for ($787.99) ₦981, 848, Virgin Atlantic ($927.99) ₦1.1m, and Royal Air Moroc ($456.99) ₦569,422.
Also, RwandAir has pegged airfare to ($545.35) ₦679,070, Ethiopian Air ($543.84) ₦677, 824, Turkish Airlines ($647.84) ₦807, 408, Air France London ($915.99) ₦1.1m, while KLM pegged its price to ($927.84) ₦1.1m.,
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The development follows price cuts by the airlines from as much as N3.5m between January and February 2024, to an average price of N1.4m last week.
Wednesday’s ticket prices were significantly lower than in the second half of last year and early this year. As of July last year, a one-way economy ticket from Lagos to London cost ₦2.7m at a conversion rate of ₦907 per dollar at the time.
In the first week of April this year, a one-way ticket cost between ₦1.03m and ₦1.3m despite the exchange rates being higher at ₦1,250 per dollar.
