In February, African airlines reached 64% of the capacity they reached in February 2019. Similarly, airlines saw 49.6% of the air traffic reached in the same month.
This is according to an African Airlines Association (Afraa) estimation published this month.
Afraa figures showed further that the domestic market had maintained the biggest share for capacity deployed, though traffic share saw a small dip.
Domestic demand – at 45.3% of the February 2019 figures – outperformed intra-Africa and intercontinental travel, which remained subdued at 31.2% for intra-Africa and 23.5% for intercontinental.
On the actual number of passenger seats offered, domestic, intra-Africa and intercontinental accounted for 49.4%, 24.7%, and 26% respectively.
Four African airlines (not named in Afraa’s report) continued their international route expansion and, by end of 2021, had exceeded the number of international routes operated pre-COVID.
Eleven other African airlines also either reopened routes or launched new international routes. At the end of January 2022, African airlines had reinstated approximately 78.7% of their pre-COVID international routes, though frequencies remained low, highlighted Afraa.
Across Africa in general, passenger traffic volumes remained depressed in February due to the unilateral and unco-ordinated travel health restrictions imposed by some governments following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Airline revenues remained low with many operators still battling with cash-flow issues. Full-year revenue loss for 2022 is estimated at US$4.9bn, equivalent to 28.2% of the 2019 revenues.
In 2021, African airlines cumulatively lost $8.6bn in revenue.
Iata figures
These figures seem to tally with Iata’s forecast for the airline industry’s recovery.
For Africa, Iata predicts:
- Africa’s passenger traffic prospects are somewhat weaker in the near-term,
- this is due to slow progress in vaccinating the population, and
- the impact of the crisis on developing economies.
- Passenger numbers to/from/within Africa will recover more gradually than in other regions,
- reaching 76% of 2019 levels in 2022,
- and only just surpassing pre-COVID crisis levels in 2025 (i.e. reaching 101% of 2019 levels).
