NAIROBI, Kenya Feb 3-Stringent travel advisories have continued to depress the performance of airlines’ in Africa with numbers still below 2019 capacity, the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) has said.
According to AFRAA, African airline revenues have remained low with many operators battling with cash-flow issues with full-year revenue loss for 2021 estimated at $8.6billion.
This is equivalent to 49.8 per cent of the 2019 revenues.
“As a result of these uncoordinated measures, air passenger traffic from January to December was only 42.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2019,” AFRAA noted.
The capacity improved and reached 52.7 per cent in January 2022, and AFRAA expects it to inch up by 6.3 per cent to 59 per cent in the year.
According to the airline lobby group, the domestic market maintained the biggest share for capacity deployed, though actual passenger traffic saw a dip.
Domestic demand was at 42 per cent and outperformed intra-Africa and intercontinental which remained subdued at 31.9 per cent and 25.6 per cent respectively.
On the actual number of passenger seats offered, domestic, intra-Africa and intercontinental account for 47.3, 24.9, and 27.8 per cent respectively.
As at the end of 2021, African airlines had reinstated approximately 80.8 per cent of their pre-Covid international routes, though frequencies remain low.
The Intra-African connectivity reached 76 per cent of the pre-Covid level in November 2021 and increased to 80 per cent in December.
AFRAA forecast the intra-African connectivity to slide back to 76 per cent in January 2022 because of the closure of some routes.
“Across Africa in general, passenger traffic volumes remain depressed due to the unilateral and uncoordinated travel health restrictions imposed by some governments following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COV-2,” said AFRAA.
