Passengers and those that do business at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, particularly the air ticket vendors have lamented the instability in the fare charges by the local airline operators.
The airport users have expressed dissatisfaction on how these local airline operators change the fare charges at will without any known cause for such changes.
Some of the users who spoke to The Tide opined that all the airlines that operate local flights at the airport are involved in the same dealings.
For Vincent Ekwe, one of the regular travelers that use the airport, such practice does not translate to transparency and stability, pointing cut that passengers ought to know the actual price of air ticket and get prepared for it.
He said a situation where charge in price from what it used to be is made known at the ticket counter does not speak well of good business dealings  and unacceptable.
On his part, one of the air ticket brokers, Mr. Lawrence Udoh, has posited that changes in the air ticket charges is not peculiar to rush hour or off-peak business period.
He said that one can purchase the normal ticket prize from any of the local airlines operators, even where there is a rush or increase in passengers’ traffic.
“Sometime you might go to purchase ticket at a time when there are few passengers, but will be surprised that the price has increased, and no reason will be given for such increase”, Udoh said.
Meanwhile, a regular ticket vendor at the airport, popularly known as “Udeng” has said that such instability sometimes had given room for argument between him, and his customers.
According to him there is not just reason for increase in fare when there is no rush of passengers when the price for local flight is already known to the customers and passengers.
He however urged the local airline operators to try and maintain stability in the charges, pointing  out that such stable practice would rekindle confidence on their customers.
However, a check on the price charges on air ticket has shown that such charges vary between airlines.
For Air Peace Airline, the charges for Port Harcourt to Lagos and Abuja for the economy class is between N45,000 and N23,000, while the’ Arik airline economic class goes between N20,000 and N47,000.
For the Dana airline, the charge for the same is between N20,000 and N50,000 as the case may be.

Corlins Walter