African Air travel has made a robust recovery, nearly reaching pre-pandemic levels, an association of African carriers has said in a new report. The African Airlines Association (AFRAA) said traffic in March reached 94.8 per cent of 2019 levels as more international routes and tourism reopened.
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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) today announced passenger data for May 2022 showing that the recovery in air travel accelerated heading into the busy Northern Hemisphere summer travel season.
African airlines had a 134.9% rise in May RPKs versus a year ago. May 2022 capacity was up 78.5% and load factor climbed 16.4 percentage points to 68.4%, the lowest among regions.
The industry has returned to year-on-year traffic comparisons, instead of comparisons with the 2019 period, unless otherwise noted. Owing to the low traffic base in 2021, some markets will show very high year-on-year growth rates, even if the size of these markets is still significantly smaller than they were in 2019.
Total traffic in May 2022 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was up 83.1% compared to May 2021, largely driven by the strong recovery in international traffic. Global traffic is now at 68.7% of pre-crisis levels.
Domestic traffic for May 2022 was up 0.2% compared to the year-ago period. Significant improvements in many markets were masked by a 73.2% year-on-year decline in the Chinese domestic market due to COVID-19-related restrictions. May 2022 domestic traffic was 76.7% of May 2019.
Data also shows that the total number of intercontinental routes operated by African airlines have exceeded pre-Covid levels since October 2022.
The association said that African airlines are on course to narrow their revenue gap in 2023.
African airlines lost $3.5 billion in revenue in 2022 and $8.6 billion in 2021.
Good news and congratulation to the Kingdom of Eswatini to become the newest Airline to take flight. Eswatini Air recently secured a Foreign Operator Permit for Zimbabwe and anticipates the same for South Africa.
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swatini Air is poised to operate a fleet of two 50-seater aircrafts, offering direct, non-stop flights to Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and Harare. Their inaugural flight is scheduled for 26th March 2023, heading to Johannesburg from King Mswati III International Airport, which will serve as Eswatini Air’s central hub. This operation would give a much-needed boost to the country’s economy as it would increase trade and tourism between the landlocked country and its bigger Southern African counterparts.
The Manzini (Eswatini)-based airline, which received its Air Operator Certificate last December, added that it had made and tremendous progress in securing the necessary documentation to operate to the destinations they will be flying to. Among recent steps has been the assignment of the RN two-letter airline codes by the International Air Transport Association IATA with the accounting prefix 507. The International Civil Aviation Organisation has also allocated the airline the three-letter ICAO designator SZL and associated call-sign Eswatini.
Eswatini Air has been keen to serve Harare, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. Nkambule said earlier that the carrier has applied for landing and departure slots at those destinations and systems would be configured and a schedule published as soon as these were to be secured.
Eswatini Air’s current fleet consists of a pair of Embraer ERJ-145s. The launch will be spread across three phases, starting with one destination followed by two others after one month, and a fourth destination in the final phase.
International traffic rose 325.8% versus May 2021. The easing of travel restrictions in most parts of Asia is accelerating the recovery of international travel. May 2022 international RPKs reached 64.1% of May 2019 levels.
“The travel recovery continues to gather momentum. People need to travel. And when governments remove COVID-19 restrictions, they do. Many major international route areas – including within Europe and the Middle East-North America routes – are already exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels.
“Completely removing all COVID-19 restrictions is the way forward, with Australia being the latest to do so this week. The major exception to the optimism of this rebound in travel is China, which saw a dramatic 73.2% fall in domestic travel compared to the previous year. Its continuing zero-COVID policy is out-of-step with the rest of the world, and it shows in the dramatically slower recovery of China-related travel,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director-General.
