Travel News

By Princess Etuk

Green Africa has announced the temporary suspension of its flight operations due to an unexpected issue with its aircraft lessor.

Despite efforts to manage the situation and prevent disruptions, the airline confirmed that flights would remain grounded until after the Eid al-Fitr holidays.

In a statement on Monday, the airline expressed regret over the inconvenience and assured passengers that it was actively working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“We sincerely apologise to our valued customers who will be impacted by this disruption,” the airline said. “Please rest assured that we are actively working towards ensuring that we are able to resume operations in very short order.”

While Green Africa did not disclose specific details about the issue with its lessor, it reaffirmed its commitment to transparency and customer service.

The airline has advised affected passengers to stay updated through its official communication channels.

BY Jamie Brassington

The UK could shiver in a fresh Beast from the East in April, it is feared. Maps and data from WX Charts have revealed that the majority of the UK is set to plummet into frosty conditions from mid-April.

According to the data, snow could blanket cities including London, Newcastle and Birmingham on April 12. In Ireland, major cities including Dublin and Belfast could experience snow.

Most of Wales is also covered on the map, as well as Scotland. Giving its week-by-week verdict, which spans April 14 onwards, Netweather TV explained the "period may see the weather turn more unsettled at times with high pressure over northern Britain slackening and allowing low pressure systems and fronts to push in from the south-west at times."

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It states: "It does not look likely that we will move into a full-blown Atlantic westerly dominated regime, with slack areas of low pressure the more likely outcome, perhaps leading to a fair amount of showery weather at times with occasional longer outbreaks of rain, particularly in the south.

"High pressure is likely to often be close to the north which will probably again result in drier than average weather overall in most parts of Scotland. Relatively frequent easterly winds and lower pressure may result in low cloud being quite frequent near North Sea coasts of eastern Scotland and north-east England, but north-west Scotland is likely to remain mostly dry and sunny.

"Temperatures will probably be near to slightly above the long-term normal during this week, with rainfall totals below normal in most of Scotland, particularly the north-west, but a chance of above-average rainfall in south-western Britain.

Averaged over the UK, it will probably still be a little drier than normal. Sunshine is expected to be near normal for most of the UK, but below normal near north-eastern coasts and above normal in north-west Scotland."

Nick Finnis, meanwhile, said: "The outlook continues to remain dry for much of the country over the coming few weeks, perhaps for the first half of April, thanks to a persistent blocking high pressure system close to or over the British Isles. 00z GFS, below, shows most of the UK and the near continent dry as a bone for the 1st 10 days of April at least! More rain on the way for Iberia though this week - especially Portugal and western Spain."

Air Canada says demand for flights between Canadian and U.S. cities is weak for the spring and summer months, as Canadians respond to the trade war by avoiding trips south.

Bookings for transborder flights were down 10 per cent for the April-to-September period compared with the same period last year, as of mid-March, according to a presentation at the company’s annual meeting.

Air Canada is the largest Canadian airline and flies to more U.S. destinations than any other. “Am I concerned?,” Chairman Vagn Sørensen said in a response to a question from a shareholder during Monday’s meeting. “Yes, definitely, I’m concerned.”

Shares of Air Canada are down 35 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Air Canada and WestJet said in separate statements last week that geopolitical tensions are causing some consumers to choose not to take vacations in the U.S. The shift is part of a larger boycott of American products in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his repeated statements that he believes Canada should be part of the U.S.

Sørensen added that the company is seeing strong demand for transatlantic flights to European destinations. The airline announced Monday that it’s adding flights this summer to cities including Edinburgh, Paris, Athens and Rome.

U.S.-Canada routes were 22 per cent of Air Canada’s passenger revenue in 2024.

Air Canada focuses on staying “agile,” Sørensen said, maintaining enough flexibility to redeploy capacity when demand shifts.

Porter Airlines, a competitor to Air Canada, said Monday it has altered its summer schedule so that domestic routes are 80 per cent of its total capacity, up from 75 per cent in its original plan. The airline said it’s making “targeted frequency reductions in select U.S. markets” but that its overall presence on Canada-U.S. routes will still be larger than last summer. Porter has been expanding capacity as it deploys new Embraer E195-E2 jets.

UK-based Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. also warned Monday that ticket sales on flights originating in the U.S. have weakened in recent weeks, while demand from Europe to the U.S. has held up well so far.

The S&P 500 Passenger Airlines Index dropped more than 6 per cent early Monday before paring those losses to a 1.4 per cent decline as of 1:30 p.m. New York time.

Public opinion polls show that a large majority of Canadians have no interest in joining the U.S. and they disapprove of Trump. A poll by Leger Marketing released last week found only nine per cent of Canadians would like to be part of the U.S.

Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg News

By Ainsley Thomson

New Zealand is seeing “red hot” interest in its revamped golden visa program from the US and Europe as rising geopolitical tensions prompt wealthy people to consider options abroad, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford said.

Applications for the Active Investor Plus visa open Tuesday in Wellington following an overhaul designed to make the program more appealing to affluent migrants. Changes include scrapping the English-language requirement, reducing the time investors must spend in the country, lowering minimum investment thresholds and simplifying investment categories.

BY  Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha 

Nigeria’s domestic air travel declined in 2024, driven by aircraft shortages and soaring ticket prices that placed air travel out of reach for many passengers.

Data from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) shows a 10 percent drop in passenger traffic, with numbers falling from 12.05 million in 2023 to 11.55 million in 2024.

The decline was caused by foreign exchange shortages, escalating maintenance costs, and regulatory hurdles, which forced airlines to ground planes and reduce operations.

BusinessDay had reported that the high cost of spare parts and maintenance forced several airlines in Nigeria to park their planes across various airports last year.

BusinessDay learnt that foreign exchange scarcity also forced some airlines to take spare parts from one grounded plane to fix others and keep them flying.

Passengers travelling from Lagos to second-tier airports such as Ilorin, Akure, Asaba, Benin, Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Ibadan and Yola did not have the luxury of choosing airlines to fly due to the persisting aircraft shortages at Nigerian airports.

Limited airplanes have forced airlines to either reduce frequencies or suspend operations in and out of second-tier routes, paying more attention to first-tier or frequently used routes to maximise economic benefits.

The situation saw some airlines dominantly control certain routes, limiting passengers’ choices and cutting jobs previously created by multiple airlines at the airports.

It also had cost implications for passengers.

In 2023, a fare from Lagos to any of the second tier airports stood at an average of N65,000, but last year, a one-way economy class ticket from Lagos to any of these destinations jumped to between N100,000 and N300,000.

Olumide Ohunayo, director of research at Zenith Travels, explained that disposable income is one of the factors why fewer Nigerians travel by air, adding that there is a reduction in patronage.

According to Ohunayo, domestic travel is not generally improving for Nigerians but disposable income is not the only reason.

“Many airlines that operate into Calabar do not operate on a daily basis. Air Peace two times a week. Aero, twice a week. It is only Ibom Air that operates every day and with the 50-seater aircraft.

“So, there is still that mismatch between the product we are offering and the airport itself and the positions available. And we cannot continue to expect any miracle because disposable income is not enough. We also need to begin to work on the regulations. And in doing that, we have advocated a new regime of licenses should be done to encourage those other airports,” he said.

Ohunayo said people should be able to go to cities from other cities and state to state and this can only be done by allowing a new set of regulations that would allow smaller aircraft to operate.

Seyi Adewale, chief executive officer of Mainstream Cargo Limited, told BusinessDay that the principal implication of having few airlines fly certain routes is that the airline or airlines will determine the price of airfares on these routes and this is against the overall interest of the passenger.

“No opportunity for price discovery, fair competition, and choice.

“It also implies that if the airline has a technical issue, passengers will be stranded and this will significantly affect their social or business plans or engagements. The airlines, on the other hand, would be happy with this no-competition stance and potentially make ‘supernormal’ profit on these routes,” Adewale said.

He hinted that the sad reality is that there are no quick fixes as aviation generally requires medium to long-term planning.

He said airlines with current Air Operating Certificate (AOC) and Air Transport Licence (ATL) may need to enter into wet-lease agreements with international counterparts with (good fleet) capacity to quickly deploy two to four aircrafts and take advantage of the gap therein.

In addition to the grounding of aircraft, the suspension of Dana Air, a relatively low-cost carrier, which had six aircraft in its fleet, also impacted on the fleet operating the domestic routes.

Routes that Dana Air previously operated saw an increase in ticket costs.

Data obtained by BusinessDay from the NCAA last year showed that 13 domestic airlines operating in Nigeria operate a total of 91 aircraft. This data includes aircraft that have gone on maintenance.

Sources close to the NCAA told BusinessDay that apart from Dana Air that has been grounded, over half of the 91 aircraft have gone on maintenance and some have become grounded, which put a strain on the few operating planes.

Ibrahim Mshelia, CEO of West Link Airlines, stated last year that the dollar scarcity created significant challenges for airlines, as they struggled to secure funds and foreign currency to purchase spare parts and bring their aircraft back into operation.

“Most of their fleets are depleted. So, if the fleet is depleted, then people will choose routes that give them more money or routes that are favourable to operate with available airplanes.

“The injury is the delay in getting parts and dollars to pay for parts. The country has to make deliberate policies. These monies need to be made available to carriers because their operations are time-bound and if they don’t get the money on time, a lot of things happen.

“If airlines can’t find dollars to buy at a favourable rate, then it becomes a problem. It is the system that is creating a monopoly for the operators but not the operators creating the monopoly,” Mshelia explained.

By Adaku Onyenucheya

Transporting containers with goods from Apapa Port has become more expensive than other ports such as Tin Can and Lekki. The surge is due to multiple checkpoints managed by government, security, and regulatory task forces along the port access roads and extortion by truck associations.

Truckers must navigate a maze of security and regulatory checkpoints along the Apapa port access roads, from Ijora to Apapa and from Apapa to Mile 2, Creek Road and Eleganza.

At these points, money is collected from truckers to access the port, further inflating the haulage cost. According to recent findings, transporting a 40-foot container from Apapa Port to Alaba International and Aspanda markets costs N900,000. In contrast, the same journey from Tin Can Island Port costs N350,000 and from Lekki Port, N550,000. For a 20-foot container, the cost from Apapa port is N400,000.

Stakeholders also pointed to the irregularities within the NPA’s Eto Call-up system as one of the primary drivers of these high haulage fees. The Head of the Technical Department of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Adeshina Ajibola, highlighted the role of an unidentified cabal that has been selling one-way access call-up tickets for between N250,000 and N300,000 per truck.

The General Secretary of the Lagos State Truck and Cargo Operators Committee (LASTCOC), Mohammed Sani, also confirmed that corruption at the port is crippling the haulage sector. He revealed that truckers have been waiting for a resolution to the issue, but it remains largely unaddressed, further exacerbating the cost of transporting cargo.

A clearing agent, Kehinde Odumuyiwa, lamented the increased difficulty importers are having using Apapa Port. He explained that cargoes from both Apapa and Tin Can Port are heading to the same market, yet the costs from Apapa are much higher, leading to increased competition from importers using alternative ports.

“All the goods go to the same market, but the cost of haulage from Apapa is just too high. We are now forced to charge N900,000 for a cargo that should only cost N380,000 to transport from Apapa to Lagos. It takes a week just to get a truck into the port, and on top of that, customs and clearing procedures have become even more cumbersome,” Odumuyiwa said.

Another clearing agent, Frank Aliakor, also verified that the cost of transporting containers from Apapa Port to Alaba International and Aspanda markets has reached no less than N880,000 for a 40-foot container, while the cost for a 20-foot container is N400,000.

Aliakor pointed out that it often takes days for trucks to even gain access to the port, with various security agencies and truck associations controlling access and collecting fees along the way.

“The challenge lies with the Eto Call-up system and the movement of trucks in and out of Apapa. The NPA, the Police, and other agencies all have task forces on the road, delaying trucks’ access to the port. As a result, truckers have to recoup these additional costs from importers, which drives up haulage fares,” Aliakor explained.

There has been a growing call from stakeholders to dismantle these corrupt checkpoints, with many believing that such actions would lower transportation costs. Aliakor noted that the truckers are passing on the charges they incur from these agencies and unions, inflating haulage fees.

“If these points of corruption and checkpoints are dismantled, the cost of cargo transportation will drop significantly,” he stated.