Air travellers groan as scarcity of aviation fuel bites harder

The scarcity of aviation fuel otherwise known as JetA1 in the aviation parlance has continued to bite harder with many passengers across the country’s airports experiencing difficulties in catching their flights.

The scarcity of the commodity, which had been on and off, became pronounced again last week with airlines either delaying, rescheduling or canceling their flights.

Because of this, many passengers had their flights disrupted across the airports particularly at Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

When Sunday Tribune visited the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) and MMA2 on Saturday, passengers were seen waiting for their flights to be announced while the airlines struggled to get the commodity from the oil marketers.

The situation still continued on Saturday with the domestic airlines still delaying their flights while they looked for aviation fuel.

One of the airlines mostly affected on Saturday was Arik Air which alerted that if the situation was not urgently handled, it might lead to more flight cancellations or delays.

Confirming this in a statement, the spokesperson of Arik Air, Ola Banji,  said that the scarcity of the commodity became prevalent recently when oil marketers started rationing JET A1 supply to airlines due to limited stock at the depots.

Banji said that the situation was critical in Lagos and Abuja, the operational hubs of Arik Air, warning  that if the situation was not addressed as a priority by the marketers, more flights could be delayed or cancelled.

“Arik Air, the largest consumer of aviation fuel in Nigeria, operates more than 120 daily flights and its daily fuel requirement is about 500,000 litres. This means that Arik Air would be mostly affected by the scarcity and delay in marketers to source and deliver fuel to the airlines.”