N30,000 Lagos Airport-Ikeja fare sparks outrage

The pricing of the newly introduced airport car-hire service has sparked outrage among travellers and Nigerians online after a travel content creator revealed that a trip from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, to Ikeja could cost as much as N30,000.

The development came to light after travel content creator Chris Joondeph, known as “Authentic Travelling”, shared a video on TikTok of his experience at the Lagos airport, where he sought the cost of a ride to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Ikeja.

Joondeph, who said he previously paid between N6,000 and N8,000 for the journey on Uber, was surprised when an airport car-hire operator quoted N30,000 for the trip.

“Radisson, that’s in GRA Ikeja. It’s just 30,000,” the operator told him after checking the fare.

Reacting to the price, Joondeph said, “It costs 30,000 to Ikeja, when it normally used to cost me at most 8,000 naira. Me, I sabi. I won’t be paying that.”

Rather than use the airport service, the content creator said he walked outside the airport to order an alternative ride-hailing service.

“I am here outside of this hotel called Blue Lodge Hotel. I just ordered an inDrive, which was the first one to come. So he’s a couple minutes away, and it was 6,100 naira is what I’m going to pay to get home,” he said.

A check by PUNCH Online on Wednesday showed a significant difference between the airport car-hire prices and fares available on conventional e-hailing platforms for the same destination.

The airport car-hire platform, ACHRAMS, lists trips from the airport to the city centre at between N10,000 and N20,000, while journeys to suburbs are priced at N20,000 to N30,000. Inter-state trips are listed at between N30,000 and N60,000.

For a trip from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport to the Radisson Hotel in Ikeja, a check on another e-car service platform showed that Bolt listed the fare at N6,900, while Uber listed N4,200 for UberX and N5,800 for its Priority option.

At N30,000, the ACHRAMS fare is therefore about 335 per cent higher than Bolt’s, 614 per cent higher than UberX, and 417 per cent higher than Uber Priority for the same journey.

The price disparity has since triggered reactions from Nigerians on social media, with some questioning the cost of the airport service, particularly for relatively short journeys within Lagos.

One X user, #Captainbee, described the N30,000 fare as “exploitation”, asking why a trip that should cost significantly less would attract such a charge.

Another user, Aziegen (Igba Aje), questioned the price of travelling from the airport to the Radisson Hotel in Ikeja GRA.

“How can a taxi ride from Murtala Muhammed International Airport to Radisson Hotel in Ikeja GRA, a journey of roughly 4–9 km depending on the route, typically less than 20 minutes, cost N30,000?” the user asked.

Similarly, #abidemi_rufai described the fare as “a rip off”, comparing it with Uber’s previous charges for the same journey.

“This is a rip off and I wonder why FAAN would ban UBER from operating inside the airport and collabo with an operator that would charge 30k from the airport to Radisson Blu Ikeja. UBER would charge between 6k and 8k for the same trip,” the user wrote.

On TikTok, another user, Yinkaku, questioned the sustainability of the pricing, saying, “FAAN will eventually have to use their apps by themselves, coz that pricing is not even realistic.”

Another user, Sarova, also questioned the fare, saying, “The airport is literally in Ikeja. How can it cost 30,000?? That’s crazy.”

The fare disparity followed restrictions on direct pick-ups by conventional e-hailing operators while discussions over how they would operate within the airports’ security and regulatory framework continued.

However, FAAN has said it did not impose a blanket ban on Uber, Bolt or other e-hailing services, explaining that it was engaging the platforms on how they could operate within the airports’ security and regulatory framework.

The authority said ACHRAMS was introduced to regulate airport car-hire operations and was “not intended to compete with or replicate the services provided by Uber, Bolt or any other e-hailing platform.”

For travellers, however, the immediate concern highlighted by the viral video is the substantial difference between the fares available through the airport’s car-hire system and those offered by other e-hailing platforms for the same journey.