No Airline Sells Ticket In Foreign Currency – says NCAA

The Federal Government has described as untrue, claims that foreign airlines are selling their tickets in foreign currency in Nigeria due to their earnings that are trapped with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

There have been reports in the media that some foreign carriers like Turkish Airline, Lufthansa and Delta were selling tickets only in foreign currency.

The move, according to the reports, was to evade the forex liquidity crisis in Nigeria, coupled with alleged upward review of charges by the local authorities.

But, speaking to journalists recently, the director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, said none of the foreign carriers had notified the concerned agencies of any change in ticketing modalities.

According to Nuhu, Nigerian currency (Naira) remains the statutory currency of transactions in the aviation sector, saying that the regulation mandates operating airlines to notify the NCAA where there are significant changes, but none has approached the apex regulator on dollarisation of flight tickets.
“In fact, on one of the airlines that is claimed in the social media to be selling in dollars, I actually got its ticket purchased today in naira in preparation for the ICAO event coming up next month. I bought the ticket ahead of time so that I can get a lower price. So, we are not aware of dollarisation where airlines have demanded dollars for the purchase of tickets,” Nuhu said.