Lagos will soon lose its spot as busiest airport in Africa

diamond hope

February 5, 2018 10:26 AM

The Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos may no longer be one of the busiest airports in Africa.

CITA, a major aviation fuel supplier to Nigeria and other countries in Africa disclosed that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, may lose its slot as the second busiest airport in Africa to Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg.

This, CITA says, is because of poor aviation fuel supply and the outrageous price of the product, known as Jet A1 in the industry. CITA said Nigeria has the capacity to supply 1 billion liters of fuel per annum but currently it only supplies 500 million liters due to the country's inability to refine fuel locally.

The company warned that as Lagos airport continues to lose flight traffic and many international carriers fuel from neighboring airports like Accra, Abidjan, and Lome while departing from Lagos.

Speaking during the launch of the partnership between CITA and PUMA energy, the managing director of CITA, Thomas Ogungbangbehe, said that as the country's passenger traffic is projected to grow by almost 20% in 2023, Nigeria would require 2 billion liters of aviation fuel per annum to meet the demand.

Ogungbangbe expressed concern over the fact that airlines operating in Nigeria go to Ghana to refuel as a result of inadequate supply and the high cost of aviation fuel.

"The jet fuel sector has grappled with challenges - not devoid from the challenges experienced by the Nigerian larger economy, a situation that in recent times led to airlines having to stop-over in other countries for jet fuel.

"As soon as the downward slide of crude oil prices became a continuum, some market indices became confused, the foreign exchange became scarce and expensive, so jet fuel price was going down in the international market but the local market was steadily going up. Because of this, hedging became difficult as futures and spot prices became lower than the present selling price," he said

He added that the new partnership between CITA and PUMA promises to bridge these challenges.

diamond hope