By Chinelo Obogo
National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) has said the refusal of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to release $450million belonging to foreign airlines flying into the country has paralysed the travel agency industry.
Speaking to Daily Sun, the Association’s president, Mrs. Susan Akporiaye, said that the situation is now so dire that for some time, travel agents have been unable to sell tickets because foreign airlines have removed the lowest base fare from their price inventories and replaced it with higher ones to bypass the CBN and buy forex in the parallel market.
She said that at the moment, many of the their customers wishing to travel for summer vacation and students, studying abroad wanting to travel to resume their studies are now stranded in Nigeria because they cannot afford the exorbitant cost of flight tickets.
She said the current situation presents a real threat to the industry and the continuity of their business as travel professionals, bearing in mind the potential jobs losses and the attendant national economic losses as the world gradually comes out of the COVID-19 Pandemic era.
“Summer travel for us in Nigeria is threatened and has been so for the past two months. It has been horrible for us, people want to travel but we can’t sell because the cost of the tickets is ridiculously high.
For instance, Virgin Atlantic has removed all the inventories and now it is only the highest class that is on the system selling for N1.8 million. British Airways still has lower fares of about N800, 000 but look at it, the fares are so ridiculous.
“We are no longer enjoying this and that is why we have been calling on the CBN to release the funds so that things can normalise for us to sell tickets. This is so frustrating. For the past one week, I have been receiving calls from my customers who want to travel and by the time I send the flight cost, they would say it is too high. This applies to those who want to travel to different countries. This is so sad. Inasmuch as I want to make sales, I am also pitying my passengers. Normally, a family of four would spend N1.7 million on flights but now, we are talking about N3 million. “We have been struggling to make sales not because requests are not coming in, but whenever we get requests and send the cost, the passengers change their minds because the fares are too high. So, for now, it is only corporate travels that we have been doing. We are sending an SOS to the Presidency to come to our aid.