New hike in Sudan’s domestic flight prices

Prices of domestic airline tickets will increase within the coming days because of the rising price of plane fuel this month, the Sudanese government announced.

The State Minister of the Ministry of Defense, Ali Salem, told the National Parliament that the states in Darfur will be affected the most by the increase, which he justified by pointing to the rise of transportation costs.

The price of one litre of fuel at El Geneina airport is SDG70 ($10.70) while it is SDG39 ($5.95) in Khartoum, Salem said.

Members of Parliament, however, accused the local airlines of disadvantaging the Darfur states by making the airline tickets there more expensive than that of other states. They stressed that the Civil Aviation Corporation should hold the Sudan Air Company accountable for that.

Prices of airline tickets sky-rocketed after the lifting of fuel subsidies by the government last year. In the beginning of November, the Civil Aviation Corporation officially requested airlines flying on Sudan to adopt the Sudanese Pound rate of 15.90 for one US Dollar. The former official Dollar rate was set at SDG6. Prices of airline tickets immediately rose by more than 150 per cent.