Africa’s limited air connectivity is a long-standing constraint on tourism growth. But, on some routes, the challenge may be less about lack of demand than finding aircraft suited to smaller markets.
Smaller regional aircraft could make direct services viable to tourism destinations where passenger volumes cannot support larger aircraft at sufficient frequency.
Jurjan Knol, Vice President of Marketing for EMEA at Embraer, said many African routes operate with load factors below 80%.
“Many aircraft are actually too big for the missions they perform,” he said.
This is particularly relevant to safari destinations, coastal resorts and other secondary markets outside Africa’s major cities.
Aviation Consultant Sean Mendis said most African markets are relatively small in volume. “Given that African tourism is predominantly not urban-oriented, it stands to reason that a strong network of services with smaller aircraft to secondary and tertiary centres located closer to tourist attractions is an area that can significantly boost tourism convenience.”
A question of scale
Embraer’s 2026 Africa Connectivity Report identified 55 intra-African city pairs without non-stop services despite demand levels that, according to its analysis, could support direct flights.
The manufacturer’s analysis suggests that some of these markets fall into a range where regional aircraft can potentially make more sense than larger narrowbody jets.
ATR has made a similar case. Its market research argues that a substantial share of potential intra-African routes could be suited to aircraft with 70 seats or fewer, pointing to the lower operating costs of turboprops and their ability to serve smaller markets and airports.
Kenya’s Safarilink already uses smaller aircraft to connect Nairobi’s Wilson Airport with tourism destinations including the Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo, Lamu and Diani. Its network is predominantly domestic and regional.
AFRAA has also highlighted Zanzibar as a market where smaller aircraft could be matched to demand, including on the Dar es Salaam-Zanzibar and Nairobi-Zanzibar routes, where leisure traffic is seasonal
Cost constraint
Mendis cautioned that fleet size alone would not solve the connectivity problem. High operating costs can make air travel disproportionately expensive compared with ground transport, limiting demand in domestic and near-regional markets.
“Most domestic and near-regional markets in Africa are not realising their proper potential today, not just because of fleet constraints but because costs are often disproportionately inflated relative to the costs of ground transportation,” he said.
Technical skills shortages can also make smaller aircraft relatively expensive to operate.
“The challenge in Africa is that technical skill shortages mean that smaller aircraft become disproportionately more expensive to operate,” Mendis said. A 50-seat regional jet still requires two pilots, he pointed out, despite carrying considerably fewer passengers than a larger aircraft.
