Change of Traveling Habits on Lucrative routes like Lagos-London, and & its effect on airlines When we ushered in the year 2020, none of our wildest imaginations could have predicted a global pandemic of this magnitude, and how it could easily interfere with air travel. People’s travel plans in and out of Nigeria have suddenly been put on halt, and no one certainly knows for how long. The stay at home orders and lockdowns have seen boundaries closed for international and domestic flights alike. In Nigeria, Lagos airports have always recorded the highest number of passengers, with 1.53 million passengers recorded in Q1 of 2019. According to the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), this was made up of 860,218 passengers on domestic routes, while international routes recorded 674,153 passengers. This accounted for a 2% increase in air passenger traffic in Nigeria. These gains, which have been recorded over the last 7 years in the industry, are potentially being lost, with 25 million aviation jobs, and another 100 million on travel and tourism at risk around the globe. Even as we remain hopeful and optimistic that the skies will open up soon, traveling habits are bound to change.
Fig. 1: Annual flow of passengers by region (origin-destination) Lagos, being a home to about 21 million people, is considered the most populous city in the country. 11 kilometers away from the city sits Murtala Muhammed International Airport, which is ranked the eighth largest airport in Africa, with an estimated 4.72 million seat capacity in departures alone, as of 2018. This capacity was reported as a 7.4% rise in the year, a figure that was projected to grow and propel Lagos to number two in Africa, after Addis Ababa. While