Survey reveals Air Peace, Ibom Air control 51.25% of Nigeria’s domestic traffic

AN industry survey conducted by Phillips Consulting Limited (PCL) has rated Nigeria’s Air Peace and Ibom Air as the most preferred airlines in Nigeria.

In the survey report presented by the Managing Director of the organization, Rob Taiwo,

at an aviation event in Lagos, it was discovered that Air Peace was controlling 31.67 per cent of the domestic traffic while the Akwa Ibom State-owned Cartier, Ibom Air, controlled 19.58 per cent. Air trailed behind as the third most preferred airline.

This came just as, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), about 13 million passengers travelled through Nigerian airports in 2021, representing a growth rate of 43.41 per cent from the nine million passengers recorded in 2020.

This year’s survey was carried out between February and July 2022to better understand domestic air travellers’ perceptions, expectations, and experiences of both airline services and airport experiences. A total of 7, 815 responses were obtained by the firm

In the report, which was centred on three parts: the global aviation industry overview and outlook, the Nigerian aviation industry, and the Nigerian customer satisfaction survey, the two airlines comfortably have control over half of the domestic passenger market traffic while 16.24 per cent of passengers contacted in the survey did not prefer any airline.

However, the consistency of Green Africa at the bottom of the most and least preferred airlines was attributed to its new entrant status and brand awareness among respondents.

According to the survey findings, almost half of the respondents (47 per cent) identified Air Peace, Arik Air, and Aero Contractors as their least desired airlines. 41 per cent selected Dana, Azman, Overland, United Nigeria, Max Air, Ibom, and Green Africa as their least preferred airlines, which contradicts the results of the most preferred airlines.

In the report, most respondents contacted by the organization described Air Peace as their least preferred airline based on what they termed as the airlines’ “poor communication of information and high pricing and as the most expensive domestic airline to travel with, with the poor communication issue connecting the dots in the clash between the Emir of Kano and Air Peace in February 2022.”

For Dana, 36 per cent of respondents who chose Dana as their least preferred airline were wary of the airline’s poor communication of information and low safety standards, citing the damning Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority’s (NCAA) report on the airline.

Aero, Max Air, Arik, and Ibom Air also received flak for poor communication of information in their choices as least preferred airlines. United Nigeria Airlines and Azman were picked by respondents as the least preferred airlines for their poor record of timeliness and poor communication of information.

According to Rob Taiwo: “In 2023, while we anticipate the global aviation industry to sustain its growth trajectory, the ongoing Russian-Ukraine crisis will potentially undermine full recovery. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) by 2040, global passenger traffic will still be six percent below the pre-pandemic forecast, underscoring the long-lasting impact of the pandemic crisis”