For millions of Nigerians travelling to the South-East for the annual Yuletide pilgrimage, home is more than just a holiday, it is a sacred cultural tradition of family reunion and community bonding.
However, getting back to the East has increasingly turned into a financial and logistical nightmare.
As the festive season reaches its peak, flight ticket prices to destinations like Owerri, Enugu, Asaba, Anambra, Port Harcourt, and even Uyo have surged by as much as 200 percent.
This has left travellers grappling with skyrocketing costs, limited seat availability, and the stark dilemma of choosing between exorbitant airfares or risking the notoriously unsafe road trips to the East.
BusinessDay findings into booking engines across local carriers reveal that one-way economy tickets from Lagos to key destinations like Enugu, Asaba, Anambra, and Uyo cost over N300,000 for travel dates between December 19 and December 31, compared to standard off-peak rates that ranged between N105,000 and N135,000 earlier in the year.
The sharpest rate hikes affect high-demand trunk corridors into the South-East. Passengers booking Lagos to Enugu or Anambra on major carriers such as Air Peace, United Nigeria Airlines, Ibom Air, and Enugu Air for the peak window of December 20 to 24 are seeing standard economy tickets priced between N325,000 and N395,000 per seat.
Neighbouring airports like Asaba and Benin are experiencing similar pressures, with carriers like Aero Contractors, Arik Air, and ValueJet listing fares between N250,000 and N380,000 per seat.
Further south, flights connecting Lagos to Port Harcourt and Akwa Ibom (Uyo) on Ibom Air and XEjet range from N280,000 to N365,000.
Travellers who attempted to outsmart the seasonal price spike by booking weeks in advance are finding little financial relief.
Susan Ajiogu, a passenger travelling on the Lagos-Asaba route, recounted her experience after securing her December flight well ahead of time.
‘I booked my Christmas ticket for the Lagos-Asaba route during mid-October, and even at that period, prices were already close to N300,000, which to me was far too high for an early booker,’ Ajiogu explained.
She observed that the traditional advantage of early reservations has virtually disappeared.
‘Before now, if you booked early, you would get a ticket at the price of N150,000 to N180,000, but that is no longer the case. Things have really changed, and it appears the Christmas season is when most airlines want to rake in as much money as they can,’ she said.
Soaring ticket prices have multiplied the financial burden for families travelling together, turning routine holiday trips into massive capital outlays.
Okechukwu Kelechi, a Nigerian businessman, shared the heavy toll of taking his family home to Rivers State for the holidays.
‘For one-way economy class tickets, I spent over N1.7 million for myself, my wife, and my three kids to travel to Port Harcourt by air,’ Kelechi stated.
He noted that while road travel remains a fraction of the cost, escalating security concerns on major highways leave him with no viable alternative.
‘I almost shelved the plan for road transport, but I am deeply worried about the current insecurity, bad roads, and other hazards on the highways. If the roads were good, it shouldn’t take me up to N350,000 to travel with my entire family by road. Yet, that same N350,000 is what I am forced to pay for each person to fly for Christmas,’ Kelechi said.
Industry operators and analysts attribute this increase in price to a combination of seasonal demand, constrained fleet capacity, infrastructural challenges, and persistent foreign exchange pressures affecting operational costs such as Jet A1 fuel and engine maintenance.
Olumide Ohunayo, industry analyst and Director of Research at Zenith Travels, emphasised that standard market dynamics are driving the surge, exacerbated by capacity limits.
‘The forces of demand and supply come into play, and the only way to counter that force is to either increase supply, by airlines acquiring more aircraft, or through government subsidies,’ Ohunayo noted.
He pointed out that because the federal government owns no commercial airline, private carriers must evaluate whether short-term wet-leasing is commercially viable, especially given operational constraints.
‘Most airports in the South-East and South-South do not operate 24-hour services, which severely limits how effectively airlines can utilise leased aircraft during the Christmas rush.’
Ohunayo added that cultural obligations and security anxieties combine to make demand virtually price-inelastic on southern corridors.
‘Culturally, people will travel for Christmas and attend planned family celebrations regardless of the cost of transportation. People will not allow the economic situation or insecurity to deter them from celebrating with their communities,’ he said.
‘Because air transport is currently seen as the only secure option, those who can afford it are willing to pay whatever it takes to reach their destinations, with some even pooling resources to charter private aircraft. While routes heading to the North may not experience drastic price changes during this period, fares for the South-East and South-South will remain elevated,’ he added.
Adding another layer of complexity to this year’s holiday surge is the heightened political activity across the country, which is competing directly with commercial aviation infrastructure.
John Ojikutu (retd.), an aviation security expert and CEO of Centurion Aviation Security and Safety Consult, highlighted that the festive period coincides with election campaign preparations, sharpening competition for available airframes.
‘There are multiple dimensions to these current airfares; chief among them, alongside the traditional Christmas peak, is the election cycle where private aircraft charter operators are competing directly with commercial domestic airlines,’ Ojikutu explained.
Ojikutu revealed that the operational fleet size of scheduled commercial operators remains drastically outmatched by private aircraft, intensifying price competition across the board.
‘The demand for both scheduled domestic airlines and private charter aircraft will remain exceptionally high from now through February or March, driven by regular holiday travellers, incoming international passengers, and politicians.
‘We must not forget that there are about 240 private aircraft operating in the country compared to only about 80 active aircraft managed by domestic commercial operators. During this Christmas and political campaign window, passenger movement will be intense in both directions across these fleets, driving prices to highly competitive levels,’ he noted.
Because festive travel in Nigeria is overwhelmingly one-way, with aircraft flying full loads out of Lagos to the East and South while returning practically empty, airlines rely heavily on dynamic pricing algorithms to recover the operating costs of those low-occupancy return legs. Consequently, lower-fare ticket buckets sell out quickly, leaving only the highest flexible economy tiers available as Christmas week approaches.
In contrast, business-heavy routes display far more moderate fare adjustments during the same period.
Tickets from Lagos to Abuja across multiple airlines, including Air Peace, ValueJet, Xejet, and Enugu Air, remain relatively accessible, fluctuating between N135,000 and N284,500.
With corporate offices closing and federal civil servants wrapping up business ahead of the holidays, outbound commercial demand to the Federal Capital Territory slows significantly, preventing the steep price escalation observed on homecoming corridors.