While the price of aviation fuel was increasing by over 100% in Nigeria, the Ghanaians sharply took advantage of the situation to slash thier prices by 20% in an effort to lure international airlines, and make them move thier West African hubs from Nigeria to Ghana.
Apparently, the move is working
For instance, Emirates Airline, which recently reduced its two daily flights from Lagos to just one, last week made a re-route to Ghana, to buy fuel for its Abuja-Dubai flight.
It was learnt that Nigeria’s customer of many decades, British Airways, had started buying fuel from Ghana to power its airplane carrying Nigerian passengers to the United Kingdom.
Air France last week announced that from 2017, it would commence three weekly flights to Accra in Ghana from Paris-Charles de Gaulle. These flights will be operated by Airbus A330 with a capacity of 208 seats until 27 March 2017, then by Boeing 777-200 with 312 seats.
According to The Guardian that Ghana had become the new bride of the foreign airlines due to efforts by the government of that country to make the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the aviation hub for West Africa.
The Guardian's source, who is one of the facilitators that negotiated the 20 per cent cut on aviation fuel in Ghana, said the West African neighbour might have succeeded in beating Nigeria to being the regional hub for international airlines.
He said unlike Nigeria, Ghana already had a robust connectivity plan in place, which opened the country’s airspace to African and international carriers with so much reciprocity.
Wahala dey!
Source: The Guardian Nigeria
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