Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, yesterday blamed external and internal intrigues for the previously outrageous high prices that foreign airlines were charging for international trips.

Onyema in an interview on a national television attributed the fall of the naira to these airlines.

He claimed that they were willing to buy dollar at any rate which put a strain on the nation’s legal tender thus contributing significantly to its decline.

The Air Peace boss said the inaugural flight of the domestic airline from Lagos to London prompted its international counterparts to automatically crash their fares from N17 million to N5 million, despite the dollar rate remaining unchanged.

He said: “It was a playoff of both internal and external conspiracies. These airlines were taking into the market a lot of money, chasing dollar every day, buying at any amount. It’s no longer CBN now. They take their money from their commercial banks, go out there in the market, buying dollar at any rate and that was putting a strain on the naira.

“Now, Air Peace did this (brought down the price) and they crashed their prices from N17 million to N5 million, the dollar did not change! They were using dollar as reason for whatever they were doing to us.

“The dollar didn’t change overnight, yet they came down to N5 million. They’re under pricing; some are advertising $350. That’s why I’m saying, ‘Congratulations to Nigerians’ on two levels.

“One is, you don’t have to sell your house to fly to UK anymore. Two, the dollar has come crashing,” he said.

Onyema further urged Nigerians to imbibe and display patriotism at all times adding, “We’ve proved that if only we’re patriotic in this country, we can all do it. It’s not for the government alone to do.”

The nation’s leading airline recently positioned itself to take a larger chunk of the Nigeria/UK passenger market by undercutting foreign airlines by 66 percent on airfares.

It pegged its economy class ticket at N1.2 million on the Lagos-London route, while findings showed that foreign airlines charge an average of N3.5 million for economy class tickets from Lagos to London. (Courtesy, excluding headline, The Nation)

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