Airline Operators Plead With Federal Government to Resolve Five Percent Ticket Sales Charge Controversy

Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.

The appeal was delivered not in a courtroom or a regulatory boardroom but on the stage of the 30th Annual Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents in Lagos on Thursday, September 10, 2026, under a theme that could not have been more pointed: “Towards a Sustainable Aviation Industry: Balancing Government Revenue Demands with Sector Growth.” Dr Allen Onyema, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace Limited and Vice President of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, stood before an audience of aviation journalists, regulators and industry stakeholders and made a direct appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His message was simple and urgent: intervene in the controversy surrounding the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge, or watch Nigeria’s airlines continue their slow descent into extinction.

The five per cent Ticket Sales Charge is deducted from the cost of every flight ticket sold in Nigeria and remitted to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, which then distributes it among five aviation agencies: the NCAA retains 56 per cent, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency receives 22 per cent, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency gets nine per cent, the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology receives seven per cent, and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau gets six per cent. For Onyema, the mechanics of the charge are less important than its fundamental unfairness. The levy is applied not to airline profits but to gross ticket revenue, meaning it is charged whether the airline makes money or not. Onyema described the system as one in which regulators become silent partners in every airline’s business without bearing any of the risks. “When we talk about 5%, we have been criticising this since time immemorial. Nobody is listening,” he said. “You want to charge $200,000? You charge. Then 5% is removed from it. If I charge $100,000, 5% is removed from it. You become a partner in that business.”

The Air Peace boss did not stop at criticism. He proposed a solution: replace the percentage-based charge with a fixed flat-rate fee attached to each ticket, which he argued would make payment more predictable and reduce the financial burden on airlines. He suggested a figure of N5,000 to N7,000 per passenger, describing it as simpler, more transparent and easier for both airlines and the flying public to track. Professor Obiora Okonkwo, Executive Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines and spokesperson for the Airline Operators of Nigeria, went further, framing the charge as an existential threat. “When you talk about 5% of any person’s business, you know what it is to be a 5% owner in somebody’s business?” he asked. “The business, I borrow money to run. The business, I have sleepless nights to run. It is too much for anybody to get net out of it. The call for the removal of this 5% must stop, must not stop. It must continue.”

The dispute over the charge has been building for months. Okonkwo disclosed that before February 2026, all airlines were meeting their financial obligations without problems. The difficulties emerged after aviation fuel prices soared to N3,300 per litre following the US-Iran crisis, which pushed fuel to 40 per cent of airline operating costs. The Airline Operators of Nigeria appealed to the Presidency for relief and secured a 30 per cent waiver on the charge, followed by a structured repayment plan agreed directly with the NCAA. Under the plan, airlines paid 10 per cent of their legacy debts upfront and the balance in instalments. Okonkwo said operators complied with the arrangement until a labour union unexpectedly entered the dispute, culminating in the picketing of Air Peace and United Nigeria at Nigerian airports. He described the episode as a dance of shame and insisted that airlines had been servicing the repayment plan in good faith. At United Nigeria Airlines, he revealed, the company had even opened joint accounts with the NCAA so the regulator could withdraw funds directly without asking.

The airline operators are not arguing that they should be exempt from contributing to the funding of aviation agencies. Their argument is that the current model is fundamentally broken. Okonkwo pointed to the absence of low-level navigation charts, which he said had left much of Nigeria’s airspace underused and forced helicopters to avoid low-level night flights. He also alleged that the NCAA had collected over N10 billion from mast application fees and similar charges over two decades without corresponding improvements in navigational infrastructure. “Beyond what we pay, we do not receive adequate value,” he said. The operators have also called on the National Assembly to remove aviation revenues from the Treasury Single Account and create a dedicated Aviation Development Fund to finance critical infrastructure.

The stakes could not be higher. Nigeria’s airlines are operating in what Onyema described as an extremely hostile environment. Fuel costs have risen by 270 per cent locally, compared with 60 to 80 per cent globally. Bird strikes are a near-daily hazard, with one airline recording 56 strikes in a single year and a recent incident in Abuja causing $1.85 million in damage to a brand-new Embraer E2 aircraft. Multiple taxes and charges, estimated at 54 in total, are devouring 65 per cent of airline revenues. And the International Air Transport Association has rated Nigeria alongside Afghanistan as one of the most difficult places in the world to operate an airline. Onyema recalled that President Tinubu had previously intervened to waive a four per cent Free on Board levy introduced by the Nigeria Customs Service after operators explained its impact on their businesses, a decision that prompted Air Peace to promise 1,000 new jobs. He believes the President can do the same for the TSC. “The problem is that the President has not heard from us on why his country was so described by IATA who equally compared Nigeria to Afghanistan,” Onyema said. “I am certain any day President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sees us, that will be the day a new revolution in the airline industry in this country will occur.”

The appeal to the Presidency is not merely a request for a waiver. It is a plea for a fundamental rethinking of how Nigeria funds its aviation regulators. The airline operators argue that the current system penalises them for charging competitive fares and discourages the growth that the sector desperately needs. The NCAA, NAMA and other agencies, for their part, argue that the charge is essential to their operations and that any reduction would cripple their ability to maintain safety standards. The disagreement was laid bare at a House of Representatives public hearing in August 2026, where NAMA called for its share to be increased from 22 per cent to 56 per cent, the NCAA pushed for restoration of its original 65 per cent share, and the operators demanded the charge be scrapped altogether. The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, was absent from that hearing. As the operators await the President’s intervention, the future of Nigerian aviation hangs in the balance. Onyema’s message was both a warning and a plea: the industry cannot survive much longer under the current regime. Whether President Tinubu will heed the call, as he did with the Customs levy, remains to be seen. What is certain is that the airline operators have made their case, and they have made it loudly enough for the Presidency to hear.

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