Fear grips foreign airlines on worsening naira value

Foreign airlines in Nigeria have expressed concern over the persistent scarcity of dollars and fall of the naira value, both of which have started having a toll on their returns.

In its initial reaction to the fall in price of oil at the international market, the federal government had in March this year restricted the airlines from sending back revenue made in Nigeria in foreign currency to their home countries.

The policy then led the airlines, including the British Airways, Air France, Emirate, among others, to scale down their operations, with some of them threatening to pull out of the country.

As a result of the policy, more than 40 percent of international flights were either rescheduled or cancelled.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had, on behalf of the foreign carriers, appealed to government late last year to revisit its ban on payment of foreign currency to domiciliary accounts of the foreign airlines.

Read also: Naira at its worst fall, exchanges 400 per dollar

That the Association may intervene again anytime from now is not ruled out, given the fact the naira has lost more than 45 per cent of its value to the dollar.

Officials of the foreign airlines spoken to said there were signs that they might be forced to have the same experience again, citing current difficulty in accessing dollars from their tickets sales.

They also decried the inability of travelers to buy dollars at its current price to the dollars, which is reducing rate patronage.

Given that the international flights had gone down by 30 percent and still looking gloomy, there may be further losses unless a solution is found by the authorities.

But the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, is quoted as having assured the foreign liners that something was being done to arrest the trend.

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