11 March 2020: If you are planning air travel in the coming days, you might want to be prepared for flight disruptions owing to the scarcity of aviation fuel in Nigeria. “Unfortunately the fuel scarcity is starting to seriously impactor operations”, Air Peace, one fo the biggest Nigerian airlines said on Wednesday. “ We are likely to experience flight disruptions today and in the coming days until the situation is resolved”.

Dana Air and Ibom Air released similar notices. Nigeria is experiencing one of the worst fuel shortage in a long time, after the authorities had to reject an imported batch of gasoline owing to the elevated methanol content making it unfair for domestic usage. If this was not enough, the shortage of Greenback to import aviation fuel is just the cherry on top for the Aviation woes. 

The shortage of dollar coupled with skyrocketing prices of oil has bought about a surge in aviation fuel to as high as 607 Naira per litre growing from 360 Naira a litre last December. The Nigerian government does not regulate the price of aviation fuel like the do for gasoline, giving importers the freedom to sell at market-determined prices.

All the surge in price would obviously translate to a whopping increase in ticket prices, which is causing an “unnecessary” shock to the nation’s economy which will further exacerbate the inflation and slower the economic growth.