Aviation fuel scarcity that almost crippled the industry continued
yesterday, as Arik Air, Dana Airline and Medview said they are grappling
with flight schedule disruptions due to the severe scarcity of Jet A1
across the country.
Since the beginning of this year, Nigeria has been grappling with
inadequate supply of aviation fuel, leading in most cases to severe
shortage of the product and consequently, the disruption of flight
operations. The aviation fuel scar-city got worse at the weekend leading
to many flight delays and cancellations.
Dana Airline said the situation had affected its operations.
Spokesman for Dana, Kingsley Ezeanyanwu, said the airline had not
cancelled any of its 19 flights it does every day,but that there had
been flight rescheduling by the carrier, leading to delays. He said: “We
rescheduled flights because of scarcity of aviation fuel, which is
biting harder, but despite that, our airline was yet to cancel any of
their flights.”
A source in Medview also told New Telegraph that the airline was also
affected by the situation, hoping that the scarcity would ease off
before the end of the week. For Arik, it is the same story. Arik
operates an average of 120 daily flights, requiring about 500,000 litres
of fuel daily.
Spokesman for Arik, Banji Ola, said due to the large number of
domestic and international flights, it is the most impacted by the
inability of oil marketers to meet its daily fuel requirements on a
timely and consistent basis. This, he said, has forced the airline to
postpone flights while waiting for the fuel marketers to source and
deliver the product.
On many occasions, despite all efforts in engaging the marketers, if
fuel could not be sourced, the flights may eventually be cancelled,
causing not only revenue loss for the airline, but also inconveniencing
or leaving the passengers stranded.
He said Arik Air has identified supply and infrastructural challenges
of the marketers as some of the key factors responsible for the
epileptic supply of aviation fuel. “At the root of the fuel supply
crisis is low stock due to the inability of marketers to source for the
foreign exchange to import more Jet A1 fuel into the country.
There is also a distribution challenge as the discharging of vessels
bringing Jet A1 and other petroleum products are done in the same jetty
and loading various trucks for distribution to cities like Kano or Abuja
takes considerable effort and time,” he said.
Ola explained that the situation in the north was even more difficult
since the product takes longer to be delivered due to the trucking
distance. Oil marketers have also resorted to trucking of aviation fuel
to the airports because hydrants are not consistently available at the
airports. Arik Air has also stated that it was working on a longer term
plan which will be finalised in the coming months to mitigate this
situation and to be in a better position to address such supply
shortages and delays.
“While the Federal Government and oil marketers are working hard to
address the supply and distribution challenges, we appeal to our guests
to bear with us as they may experience flight delays and cancellations
because of the prevailing scarcity of aviation fuel across the country,”
Arik stated. Marketers have assured that the situation would improve
this week as they are expecting delivery of additional stock.
Air Peace has appealed to the Federal Government and aviation
authorities to urgently intervene in the lingering scarcity of JETA1
fuel, saying the development has disrupted the operations of airlines in
the country. Chief Operating Officer of Air Peace, Mrs. Oluwatoyin
Olajide, regretted that despite the airline’s efforts to source aviation
fuel for its operations, some of its flight schedules were affected by
the scarcity. She urged the Federal Government to address the situation
to save the operations of airlines from grinding to a halt. ”
For quite some time now, there has been a general scarcity of JET-A1
fuel in the country. Since the development, we have resorted to
different alternative sources to secure the product to ensure that
flight delays did not disrupt the programmes of our numerous loyal
customers. ”
Although this has proved very costly for us to manage, we have spared
nothing in our bid to source aviation fuel for our operations. We,
however, regret that despite our huge efforts, we have not been able to
secure enough fuel to run our operations without some hitches,” Olajide
said.
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