How Aero Contractors Loses N500m on Ticket Sales

The Managing Director of Aero Contractors Capt. Abdullahi Mahmood says the airline paid passengers N500 million in January this year following the airline’s inability to airlift them after payment.

Capt. Mahmood, who disclosed this in an exclusive chat with The Daily Times in his office at the local airport Ikeja, said the airline was unable to fly the passengers following a technical fault.

According to him, after online bookings and payments, the airline had issues with its aircraft and could not fly thousands of passengers that have booked the flights, adding that it decided to refund airfares to them.

“The airline had issues in December, our aircraft was grounded as a result of a technical fault, we have done refund of almost N500m tickets in full”.

He also blamed the high cost of airfare on the price of aviation fuel which skyrocketed to N402 per litre while cost increased, revenue continued to drop.

According to him, airlines are bleeding especially between January and February as airfare has dropped with low passengers recorded.

“As of today, I am telling you, airlines are operating at loss, fuel price has gone up, handlers have renewed their tariff, SAHCOL’s GPO of N10,000 before is now N50,000, ground handling of N20,000 is now N70,000”.

He explained that it was not only Aero contractors but across the airlines in the country adding that forex has done a lot of damage to airline operations in the country