● Air ticket price hike inevitable.
300 Arik Air staff reportedly sacked by the airline company last week would no longer loose jobs, the Federal Government has said.
The Government also noted that the over 100 per cent hike in domestic airfares was inevitable, describing it as one of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Musa Nuhu, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
He said, “As regards ticket prices, yes ticket prices have gone up astronomically over the last week or so. That is one of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aviation, tourism and travel industry is one of the most devastated industries.
“Because we had a shutdown for several months, the airlines were not making money and there are fixed cost that they have to deal with.
On the issue of 300 sacked staff employees of Arik Air, the NCAA boss said the workers were not retrenched.
“Yes there was an issue but the staff were never sacked. There was a threat by one of the airlines and some disengagement disagreements, but the NCAA intervened,” Nuhu said,
