The development left several passengers stranded at the Lagos airport, forcing some of them to travel by road.
At about 2p.m, Officials of airlines like Air Peace, Med-View and Dana Air said all Abuja flights were fully booked. Scores of travel agencies were, however, returning with flight tickets for passengers that could pay high fees.
An economy class ticket, Abuja one-way, was sold for between N60, 000 and N70, 000, as against N23, 000 and N30, 000 at maximum. Business class ticket went for an average of N90, 000. Arik was, however, selling the minimum of about N45, 000 for economy class and N65, 000 for business on Lagos-Abuja route yesterday.
A travel agent, Yinusa, said the airlines had in the last three days raised fares because of the high passenger demand.
Domestic travel operations had since last weekend turned chaotic with the grounding of three Air Peace aircraft out of the 10 in its fleet.
Air Peace currently has the largest market share of domestic passenger traffic in the country. With multiple rescheduling and cancellations on Air Peace schedule nationwide, there has been a chain-reaction across the industry with traffic pull to other operators struggling with low capacity.
Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, said each of the grounded aircraft executes about eight flights per day and in total, the development means 24 flights disrupted every day.
