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…Airlines deny price-fixing as expert warns against regulator clash
By Chinelo Obogo
For weeks, a dispute has simmered between the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and Nigeria’s domestic airlines over allegations of fare manipulation. The controversy can be traced to December 1, 2025, when the FCCPC signalled plans to probe passenger complaints about high ticket prices. By January 2026, the Commission formally opened an investigation into what it described as exploitative pricing on local routes.
An interim report released on February 26, 2026, escalated tensions, with the FCCPC stating that its Surveillance and Investigations Department identified patterns suggesting price fixing among five airlines during the peak December holiday travel period. The findings have since drawn strong pushback from operators.
The report stated that the airfares recorded during the yuletide peak period were higher than those in the post-peak period across several routes, despite the stability in fuel prices, forex and taxes.
The FCCPC Executive Vice-Chairman, Tunji Bello, told State House correspondents that the FCCPA 2018 empowers the Commission to check the exploitation of consumers and that it will not stand by and watch Nigerian consumers being exploited under any guise. Bello disclosed that the Commission was set to sanction about five airlines found guilty of colluding to fix prices and added that these airlines may be required to refund excess charges to customers. He also said that foreign airlines would be investigated after the conclusion of the ongoing review of domestic carriers.
AON pushes back
However, the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) pushed back when its spokesperson, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo, described the FCCPC’s claims as harmful to the survival of airlines and said that the Commission’s understanding of aviation economics is flawed. He stated that local airlines respect government institutions but would resist any conclusions not grounded in operational realities. He further argued that the FCCPC does not possess the professional expertise to determine how airline prices are fixed, dismissing the interim report as an attempt to play to the gallery.
Okonkwo said that the fares in question arose due to what he described as the “one-sided travel patterns” on the Southeast routes during the yuletide. He explained that on a balanced route where load factors run at roughly 80% in both directions, such as Lagos to Abuja, an airline can spread its operational costs evenly across passengers. But on Southeast routes, the imbalance means outbound travellers must effectively absorb the cost of both legs.
“The travel pattern during the Christmas season is heavily skewed towards the Southeast. What happens is this: an aircraft flying from Lagos to Enugu, for example, may have a 100% load factor going out, with a full cargo hold, but when that same aircraft returns from Enugu to Lagos, it may come back with just five passengers and an empty cargo hold. In aviation economics, you calculate the combined cost of the outbound and return journeys.
“If a passenger was normally paying N150,000 on a balanced route, then on a one-sided route, the outbound traveller effectively needs to contribute towards both legs of the operation. That is why on certain Southeast routes during Christmas, fares can appear to double. It is not price manipulation; it is basic aviation economics and the reality of operating an imbalanced route. It is purely a function of the season and the travel pattern peculiar to the Southeast during Christmas, and nowhere else in Nigeria at that time of year,” he said.
Is the FCCPC usurping the NCAA’s regulatory powers?
The FCCPC’s actions are derived from Section 104 of the FCCPA, which overrides all other laws on competition and consumer protection. Section 104 states: “Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, but subject to the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in all matters relating to competition and consumer protection, the provisions of this Act shall override the provisions of any other law.”
Section 105(2) of the FCCPA states that the Commission shares jurisdiction with sector regulators but has precedence. It states: “In so far as this Act applies to an industry or sector of an industry that is subject to the jurisdiction of another government agency by the provisions of any other law, in matters or conduct which affect competition and consumer protection, this Act shall be construed as establishing a concurrent jurisdiction between the Commission and the relevant government agency, with the Commission having precedence over and above the relevant government agency.”
Also, while Sections 105(4) to (6) of the FCCPA state that sector regulators must negotiate working agreements with the FCCPC, Section 106 shows that the FCCPC can still issue cease-and-desist orders even in regulated sectors.
Meanwhile, Section 95(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 2022, which was passed four years after the FCCPA, confirms that where there is a conflict between the powers of the NCAA and those of the FCCPC on matters of consumer protection and competition, the powers of the FCCPC will prevail. This section subjects the NCAA’s power to make and enforce regulations ensuring fair competition in air transport services and for the protection of consumer interests to the provisions of any other law.
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Was the NCAA unaware of the Section 104 supremacy clause which supersedes all other laws on competition and consumer protection?
The question that has been on the lips of many is whether the past management of the NCAA did not attend the public hearings when the FCCPA was being debated. The FCCPA went through the entire legislative process, which includes multiple readings, committee reviews, and public hearings, before it was passed by the Senate in December 2018 and signed into law in February 2019 by the late President Muhammadu Buhari. From the beginning, the FCCPA was designed to introduce a consolidated consumer protection framework that cuts across all sectors under Section 104; therefore, any government agency in a sector as important as aviation would have had every reason to follow its passage.
The Civil Aviation Act 2022 was passed four years after the FCCPA and contains Section 8(1)(l), which empowers the NCAA to regulate competition “subject to the provisions of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act.” This shows that even the National Assembly made it a point of duty to highlight the superiority of the FCCPA within the NCAA’s own law.
However, Daily Sun learned that the NCAA management at the time did not fully participate in the public hearings during the consideration of the FCCPA at the National Assembly and therefore lost the opportunity to challenge these provisions. As the industry regulator, the NCAA was officially invited to the public hearings, but Daily Sun learned that despite the invitation, the agency did not fully participate. Industry insiders believe that had the NCAA participated fully, it would have convinced lawmakers that the issue of consumer protection should be left with it, as it already carries out those functions and exercises those powers. Most importantly, it has the professional expertise and is in a better position to handle these matters.
The Act gives the FCCPC enormous and overriding powers with respect to competition and consumer protection, and this means that it can administer and enforce even the Civil Aviation Act with respect to competition and consumer protection.
Do airline fares amount to price fixing?
A senior executive at one of the airlines told Daily Sun that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (Air Transport Economic Regulations), in Regulation 18.15.2(i) and (iii), prohibit airlines from engaging in any contract, arrangement, understanding, conspiracy or combination in restraint of competition.
“No Nigerian airline fixes prices or manipulates airfares. Every airline has an airfare band which it submits to the NCAA, and when you file it, if the NCAA objects, they immediately inform you that they are objecting to the price. The price we used last year is the same price we used three years ago. Let me give you an example.
Here we have N100,000, N200,000, N300,000, N400,000 and N500,000, and this is already filed with the NCAA. So you then price your tickets around N200,000, N300,000 or N400,000.
“The graduated fare band is submitted to the NCAA. It can range between a minimum and a maximum, so you can price anywhere within that minimum and maximum which you have already submitted to the regulator. So, no airline just wakes up and increases fares. Any fare you see from an airline has already been submitted to the NCAA. For instance, we can submit a fare band and say that our prices would be between N10 and N1,000. What this means is that we can decide to put the prices at N11 or at N900, as long as it does not exceed the N1,000 maximum which was submitted to the NCAA,” the senior executive said.
Another question which the airlines are asking is whether the FCCPC Act or the Commission as an entity can determine the prices of services offered by airline operators as private businesses in the domestic aviation industry. The Act does not give the FCCPC the power to determine, fix, or set the prices of services offered by airline operators or any other private business. Airlines, which operate in a deregulated market, have the right to price their services based on considerations such as the cost of fuel, forex and market demand. What the FCCPA empowers the Commission to do is to scrutinise how prices are arrived at, and whether the process of pricing violates competition and consumer protection laws.
FCCPC, NCAA must collaborate, not clash —Akpan
An aviation expert, Amos Akpan, told Daily Sun that for this issue to be resolved, before the FCCPC moves to sanction airlines, it must first understand the industry it is regulating and the best place to start is with the NCAA, the agency that has been doing it for decades.
He said that unlike other sectors, the aviation industry is the most regulated environment in the world where every decision, from maintenance to route planning have very strict procedures and that air fare pricing is no different. He believes the FCCPC’s approach which has seen the Commission launching investigations and threatening sanctions without first engaging the NCAA, risks producing conclusions that though may sound legally good but are uninformed.
“The way licensed operators in the aviation industry conduct their business affairs is 100% regulated. There are documented procedures for conducting every business activity. Guided by approved operations procedures, the NCAA oversees compliance and operators submit to regular NCAA inspections.
“Both the FCCPC and the NCAA are government agencies. The NCAA is backed by the Civil Aviation Act. In my opinion, the FCCPC should work with the guidance of the NCAA to address its concerns on airline ticket pricing. The reason is the complexity involved in setting prices for airline products and services. There is an Economic and Financial Regulations Monitoring Unit in the NCAA. This is the unit from which the FCCPC should obtain indices to measure and determine whether there has been irregular price fixing.
“Airlines’ products and services pricing cannot be boxed into the government’s price control mechanism without repercussions. The FCCPC should first address aviation fuel pricing, the cost of capital funds, foreign exchange rates and availability. Then it should analyse the effects of short-sector flights on maintenance cycles and costs.
“There has been a lot of innovation and improvement in the consumer protection department of the NCAA. The aviation industry has safeguards to protect both the service provider and the consumer. The regulations are continuously reviewed, upgraded and adjusted. The FCCPC should recognise and take into consideration the peculiar nature of the aviation industry,” he said.
