Chairman of Air Peace Airline Allen Onyema, says taxes and Excessive charges, domestic airlines are made to pay is a major threat to their survival in Nigeria.
Onyema who disclosed this on Thursday, at 30th Annual conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents LAAC in Lagos acknowledged that taxes and regulatory charges are necessary to fund public infrastructure, safety systems and regulatory institutions.
He however warned that excessive and overlapping levies could become counterproductive, weakening the very airlines that sustain the aviation ecosystem.
Onyema called for urgent review of the charges “For Airlines to Succeed in this country, there must be a review of the bills, charges and taxes being paid by airline operators,unless that is done, forget it, airlines will continue to wobble and stumble in this country”.he said
He lamented that airlines hardly make profit as anticipated as no airline has been able to make over a million dollars every year as profit, adding that even Air Peace that is the biggest carrier and biggest revenue generator did not make one million dollars at the end of 2025.
The Air Peace Chairman noted that according to International Air Transport Association IATA, Nigeria’s aviation industry contributes about 2.5 billion annually to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product and sustains over 217,000 jobs, as a result should be viewed as a key driver of economic growth, rather than merely a convenient source of government revenue,
He noted that the aviation should be seen as catalyst that stimulates economic activity and create broader revenue opportunities through tourism, trade and economic integration
Onyema maintained that Airline operators of Nigeria AON are not against funding government agencies, as they support them and appealed to government to allow whatever is coming to these agencies to remain with them for the development of the industry, adding that the remittance of over 25% is hurting the agencies as well.
He stated “AON believes that retention of a good percentage of whatever is generated through these airlines should remain with those government agencies for them to actually develop the industry without which there will be infrastructural decay, when this happens, airlines will be blamed”.
“So when we advocate sustainable aviation growth through the right billing, we do want to starve the government agencies”.
Onyema disclosed that Nigeria has the highest death rate of airlines worldwide according to IATA, which needs to be addressed
High operational charges in Nigeria makes it one of the toughest and expensive place to run an airline, as airlines face up to 54 different taxes, fees and charges across four major government agencies.
He .noted that the consequence for Nigeria Airlines is that heavy taxation reduces ticket revenue redemption, pushing local operators towards financial collapse, this is why there is high mortality rate which has caused over 60 Nigerian airlines to shut down overtime.
These accumulated taxes force airlines to hike prices making air ticket costlier and hulting regional connectivity as reports indicate that no fewer than 62 commercial airlines have collapsed on default in Nigeria since independence in 1960 with over 22 shutting down over a period of time.
Onyema noted that the intervention of President Bola Tinubu is required in the aviation sector to help in addressing the Excessive charges that is currently affecting airline operations
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