Air Transport in Africa Outlook - 2019-2023

[rwandan-flyer]

It's hard to see such reports about Aviation in Africa. But when we can see such reports, we learn so many things.

Biggest regional routes (pax), in Africa are mostly in Eastern and Southern Africa
Biggest continental routes (pax) between Africa and rest of the World, are mainly from Africa to Middle East. No Brussels African route, in the top 10

Glad to see Kigali . Kigali Entebbe is among the busiest routes in Africa, with over 120 000 pax per year, with 3 daily flights by RwandAir. Uganda Airlines will soon resume flights to Kigali, from December 2019 trafic will grow. I thought Kigali Nairobi was busiest. Kenya Airways operates between 2 and 3 flights a day, while RwandAir operates 3 flights a day and sonn the Kenya Airways Low cost JamboJet

Biggest hub in Africa (in term of connecvity) and biggest airports (pax and freight), it's not a suprise to see Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Cairo, Casablanca and Nairobi. And they are big competitors for non African airlines

Central Africa has a very poor record. The most of expansive airports in Africa, are in Central Africa.

If an airline wants to serve Africa, go to East Africa or Southern Africa, then West and North Africa

https://www.afraa.org/wp-content/upload ... _Final.pdf

[rwandan-flyer]

Another analysis, interesting with the capacities proposed by the African companies, in Africa.

Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Kenya Airways, RwandAir and Egyptair are the companies with the largest capacity on the African network. But there is big gap between the capacities on routes and the number of pax. On some routes, we have more than 500,000 seats in a year for traffic that runs between 100,000 and 200,000 pax per year.

Harare (Zimbabwe) -Johannesburg: 749,300 seats for 2019. For 2018, traffic reaches barely 200,000 pax
Kigali (Rwanda) - Entebbe (Uganda): 523,100 seats for 2019. For 2018, traffic reaches barely 120,000 pax

The average load factor on flights in Africa is 60%

Brazzaville-Nouakchott, opeated by Mauritania Airlines is probably one of the longest flight in Africa, with 4 stops (Pointe Noire, Libreville, Cotonou & Bamako). How an airline can get profit with this ? Better to fly from Brazzaville to Nouakchott via Paris Cdg, with Air France.

Africa is a reputed market for having a high yield, but the load factor are too low. Low competition, no sky opening, high fees, very low intra-African trade, big restriction of visas, .... If we reached a 80% load factor on these routes, it will change a lot of things

https://www.anna.aero/2019/10/24/africa ... pian-is-1/

[sn26567]

It seems that to increase their load factor, African airlines are asking government protection against fifth freedom rights by non-African airlines. That could backfire, because Ethiopian, for example, has many fifth freedom routes within Europe.

[sn26567]

I cannot resist publishing one picture of the anna.aero article mentioned by Rwandan-Flyer:

[lumumba]

Brazzaville-Nouakchott, opeated by Mauritania Airlines is probably one of the longest flight in Africa, with 4 stops (Pointe Noire, Libreville, Cotonou & Bamako). How an airline can get profit with this ? Better to fly from Brazzaville to Nouakchott via Paris Cdg, with Air France.

This flights in my opinion are very useful here in Africa all this stops give the opportunity to fly between them .
For example the TAAG flight Luanda Brazzaville Bangui Douala Luanda.
Was very popular between those stops I use to fly every week Bangui Douala and it was almost full every time the tickets where expensive though.

[rwandan-flyer]

This flights in my opinion are very useful here in Africa all this stops give the opportunity to fly between them .
For example the TAAG flight Luanda Brazzaville Bangui Douala Luanda.
Was very popular between those stops I use to fly every week Bangui Douala and it was almost full every time the tickets where expensive though.

In deed tag service in Africa are common sight. All airlines in Africa have tag service, even South African Airways (Johannesburg-Accra-Abidjan).

[rwandan-flyer]

It's possible to remove Q1 2019 and write only Air Transport in Africa Outlook, only, thanks

IATA has also updated its data, for Africa (not all unfortunately). As for Europe, the situation is deteriorating. The figures seem to be less impressive than in Europe, the traffic being lower.

The restart may take longer. Aviation in Africa, has many constraints that Europe does not have:

Low demand. The middle class is low in Africa, despite a population of 1 billion.
No open skies policy
Many restrictions for trade and visa (there is no such thing as an African Schengen)
Very low point-to-point traffic.

Example:

A typical Congolese living near the Tanzanian border will prefer the bus to go to Dar es Salaam (economic capital of Tanzania and one of the largest ports in Africa). It will go through Burundi or Rwanda. It will be longer (at least a day and a half, if there is not a mega traffic jam on the road due to an accident), but it will surely cost him less than taking Air Tanzania in Bujumbura or RwandAir in Kigali. Only Congolese businessmen or women, expatriates or humanitarian workers, can afford to fly. It doesn't make many people

Then

Airlines were already in the red, before covid19
Africa has the highest fuel price in the world
A significant foreign workforce (American, French, Indian or British pilots). So a higher salary.
A poorly skilled local workforce, hence the recruitment of foreign staff
Huge investments to be made to upgrade infrastructure

https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-08-13-03/



For Rwanda, it was 1,151,300, pax, in 2018 (at least 90% for Kigali). Going down to 500,000 pax, this is the level of the early 2010s https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/aviatio ... llion-mark



https://www.iata.org/contentassets/a686 ... diakit.pdf

[rwandan-flyer]

Interesting report about the air transport in Africa. I didn't want to focus on stats (losses, pax traffic), but on connectivity between African countries. https://afraa.org/wp-content/uploads/20 ... _-2021.pdf

As I mentioned, it is the African market that will enable to African Airlines to be profitable, but countries have to make major reforms. Even though 2020 is a complicated year, the stats are worse than I thought:

Out of 54 countries only 13 countries are linked to at least 20 countries in Africa. On the graph below we see 11 countries. The other 2 are logically Senegal and Rwanda. Even some countries in Europe (France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, ...) are better connected to Africa than some African countries to each other ...

Algeria (Morocco, Egypt, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Mauritania, Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Niger) or Tunisia (Morocco, Egypt, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Tunisia, Mauritania, Guinea Conakry, Sudan, Libya, Burkina Faso and Niger) are (largely) better connected to Europe than to Africa. Some countries in Africa have open skies agreements with the EU or countries in Europe, but none in Africa ....

Here we are talking about countries. Some countries have secondary airports which are also connected to destinations in Africa



Here we are only talking about the network of an airport. The ranking is not too different compared to the countries:



Inter connectivity between regions in Africa. Very complicated to travel from North to South or from East to West ....



One of the causes of these problems, the Visas. Half of Africans need a visa to travel in Africa (unimaginable in Europe) with high prices and a very high ticket price is added. People use the bus and taxi and planes are empties. Very long trips, due to poor infrastructure (insecurity in some regions) or traffic jams created by accidents and it sometimes takes days to clear the road.

And thus a business works slowly. For example, it takes more than 25 hours (at leas) for Rwandans living in Kigali to get to the Port of Mombasa by bus (not direct bus). Complicated if you want to import or export quickly.

"In terms of openness, more and more countries are opening their borders to other African countries.

According to the report, Visa on arrival is adopted by 32 countries across Africa.

“Unfortunately, in 2020, 46 per cent of Africans still need a visa to travel to another African country compared to 50 per cent in 2019, which is a small improvement.”

[rwandan-flyer]

As usual Nigeria gives good statistics concerning its air traffic. https://atqnews.com/travellers-award-un ... om-europe/

African airlineq which offer a network outside Africa are unfortunately behind of the most non-African airlines serving NIG, even if they are resisting and they benefit from a good network in Nigeria.

Non-African airlines have the advantage of serving the USA and Europe, 2 markets that are surely bigger than the Asia-Nigeria and Nigeria-rest of Africa market. I doudbt that they are many people doing Lagos-Kigali-London, Lagos-Addis Ababa-Frankfurt or Lagos-Nairobi-Amsterdam


With RwandAir Nigerians pass through Kigali to go to Johannesburg or Dubai, in addition to Kigali as their final destination.

With Ethiopian Airlines i would think that a lot go to Asia mainly in China and the Middle East.

West African airliners have good results


About of type of the aircraft, i think it's about the most type used by the airline to NIG

Ethiopian Airlines: 218,194 pax. Destinations: Lagos, Abuja, Enungu, Kano. Aircraft: B777-300ER

EgyptAir: 104,719 pax. Destinations: Lagos and Abuja. Aircraft: B787-9 and A330-200

RwandaAir: 51,112 pax. Destinations: Lagos and Abuja. Aircraft: A330-200

Kenya Airways: 50,800 pax. Destination: Lagos. Aicraft: B737-800

[url=https://servimg.com/view/11287103/2407][ /url]

[rwandan-flyer]

A sad article but unfortunately quite realistic. The poor infrastructure in Africa which has an impact on air traffic.

Air France which will stop its route on Monrovia (Liberia), at the end of April 2022. One reason is the economic situation of the country, but there is a focus about the state of the infrastructures. On several occasions, Air France flights had to be diverted to Cote d'Ivoire or Sierra Leone due to power cuts.

We have also the example of a Royal Air Maroc flight which in February 2022 circled around Monrovia for several hours, before going to Freetown, due to power failure. In addition to power outages

The article says that Air France spent 459,000 eu on repairs in 2012 on several of its planes that were damaged in Monrovia runway. We can think that Royal Air Maroc and Air France are not the only airlines in this case. Airlines don't communicate on this.

European or Middle Eastern airlines have huge financials resources and can compensate "huge charges" with the large volume of pax from or to destinations in Africa which travel through Dubai, Brussels, Amsterdam, Istanbul,...but for African airlines which do not have the same financial capacities, it's harder. Lomé is not London, Ouagadougou is not Amsterdam. The biggest losers are the African airlines.

But there is hope with Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Rwanda and other African countries which are upgrading their airports.


Why Africa is home to the world's 'worst airports'

Air France is suspending operations in Liberia citing poor profits and geopolitics. But a DW in-depth look at African airports found a range of issues such as lack of infrastructure and unsatisfactory customer care.

https://www.dw.com/en/why-africa-is-hom ... a-61433710

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Bullish on African airline capacity, AFRAA seeks ease in Covid norms

As of February 2022, African airlines had reinstated approximately 79.9% of their pre-Covid international routes

https://www.logupdateafrica.com/aviatio ... ms-1345100

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Africa’s aviation sector records revenue loss of $8.2b in 2021, but AfCFTA offers opportunity – Lisinge

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt in the aviation sector in Africa. The sector recorded revenue loss of $8.2 billion in 2021. The loss is approximately 47.2 per cent of the full year 2019 airlines revenue, however the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers opportunities for the transport sector. https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2022/ ... y-lisinge/

[Passenger]

...
As usual Nigeria gives good statistics concerning its air traffic. https://atqnews.com/travellers-award-un ... om-europe/
...
[url=https://servimg.com/view/11287103/2407][ /url]

British Airways: B777:
584 flights, 238.339 pax = average of 408 pax/flight. In a 777 ???
Air France: A330-200:
255 flights, 78.441 pax = average of 307 pax/flight. In a 332 ???
Delta: A330-200:
350 flights, 132.174 pax = average of 377 pax/flight. In a 332 ???

[rwandan-flyer]

They didn't put the trafic for each route on each airport served by airlines.

Ethiopian Airlines doesn't serve Nigeria only with the B777W. To Abuja they use B787 and for others smaller Nigerian cities, they use B737-800.

Air France served 2 destinations in Ngeria moslty with the A330-200, but the B777 can be deployed to Lagos.

British Airways serves Lagos with a mix of B777-300ER and 200ER and Abuja with B777-200ER

Delta serves Lagos from Atlanta and New York, mainly with the A330-200 are rarely with the A330-300.

[Passenger]

They didn't put the trafic for each route on each airport served by airlines.

Ethiopian Airlines doesn't serve Nigeria only with the B777W. To Abuja they use B787 and for others smaller Nigerian cities, they use B737-800.

Air France served 2 destinations in Ngeria moslty with the A330-200, but the B777 can be deployed to Lagos.

British Airways serves Lagos with a mix of B777-300ER and 200ER and Abuja with B777-200ER

Delta serves Lagos from Atlanta and New York, mainly with the A330-200 are rarely with the A330-300.

That may all be true.
The thing is: those official Nigerian statistics are false, worthless, useless.

Let me repeat them. And look at the impossible average number of passengers for a A330-200 and a B777-200/B777-300:

British Airways: B777:
584 flights, 238.339 pax = average of 408 pax/flight. In a 777 ???
Air France: A330-200:
255 flights, 78.441 pax = average of 307 pax/flight. In a 332 ???
Delta: A330-200:
350 flights, 132.174 pax = average of 377 pax/flight. In a 332 ???
[/quote]

[rwandan-flyer]

I read years ago that stats are often very hard to get in Africa. The Rwanda Yearbook 2022 last data about aviation shows old stats only before covid


Africa’s statistical tragedy https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/a ... al-tragedy

[Homo Aeroportus]

I should have reported on the Luxair link to Dakar here instead of in Trivia.

Here is more concerning Dakar.

Last week SmartWings inaugurated their flight from Bratislava. Will be weekly on Saturdays, with a B738.

Also announced as from May 2022 is AlbaStar with a twice weekly. Though headquartered in PMI, AlbaStar has its main hub in MXP.
But they will fly from BGY as BGY 23:15 – 05:10 DSS 06:40 - 12:20 BGY

And as member Lux_avi already mentioned TUI Fly will fly from BRU 1x weekly as from 04JUL with a B738 Max 8, via Cape Verde.
During the winter season this will become twice weekly.
Indeed the opening of several hotels calls for these additional leisure flights. The 500-room 5-star RIU hotel in Pointe Sarène near Mbour just opened in March. It seems an attractive alternative to the Radisson Blu (closer, at 20km, to the airport but damn expensive). Also it is about the same distance to downtown Dakar but without the terrible traffic jams so I'll give a try soon.

BTW, TUI NL have already started AMS-DSS also in a triangular with SID Espargos.

H.A.

[Homo Aeroportus]

Seems that Dakar GOBD/DSS is running into trouble.

The company in charge of into-plane fueling has informed the airport that due to lack of fuel they will not be able to refuel aircraft as from Wednesday 20APR at noon.
The shortage is expected to last for two weeks.

It seems that SN is planning to fly the return directly from BJL today. The SN203 of tomorrow is "cancelled" and replaced by SN1203 with such routing.
AF that was to leave CDG for DSS at 1645 today has been postponed twice, now DEP at 20:00 this evening.
DL currently on the ground at DSS has cancelled the JFK return this night.
Not sure all these changes are solely related to the fuel issue though.

H.A.

[rwandan-flyer]

The problem is that Delta and Air France serves Dakar without a tag service and can't make a little modification for the routing like SN that can do BRU-BJL-DJR. At least AF can use Mauritania or Gambia 2 countrries served by AF, but Delta Airlines... The nearest destination that they serve is Ghana. They ended to serve Libera during the mid 2010s Ebola crisis.

Maybe they will use Cabo Verde which has the FAA cat 1.

[Homo Aeroportus]

The problem is that Delta and Air France serves Dakar without a tag service and can't make a little modification for the routing like SN that can do BRU-BJL-DJR. At least AF can use Mauritania or Gambia 2 countrries served by AF, but Delta Airlines... The nearest destination that they serve is Ghana. They ended to serve Libera during the mid 2010s Ebola crisis.

Maybe they will use Cabo Verde which has the FAA cat 1.

Indeed this is exactly what they did.
DL, after having been announced cancelled, left on time and made a 1-hour stop over at SID Cape Verde before continuing on to JFK. Arriving about 1 hour late.
AF also made a refueling stop at LPA in the early morning.
SN remained on the ground at DSS during the afternoon waiting for the DSS-BRU pax and left for BJL from where they flew straight to BRU arriving 50 min late.

This morning AIBD has confirmed the fuel situation, stating that they work at correcting the issue. No NOTAM issued yet though.

H.A.

[rwandan-flyer]

Senegal: faced with the shortage of kerosene, the airlines organize themselves

In less than 24 hours, planes landing at Blaise-Diagne International Airport will no longer be able to refuel there. An earthquake for the twenty airlines concerned (Air France, Air Côte d'Ivoire, Asky, etc.).

https://www-jeuneafrique-com.translate. ... r_pto=wapp

[rwandan-flyer]

The very first flight between Israel and Botswana, on March 8, 2022.

I had not seen this info, but quite interesting if you follow Botswana aviation. A country in Africa whicxh makes rarely headlines in western press and it's well above African standards. But the country has a low numbers of international routes

Botswana is one of those countries in Africa which have a very low number of routes, even outside of its sub-region (there Southern Africa), but especially outside Africa. This is not an isolated case in the region. Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho are in the same case.

Departure of the British Airways, restructuring of European companies, local airlines in financial difficulty and countries that have experienced crises have lead to the closure of many long haul routes

Late 90s / early 2000s Lufthansa, Austrian, Air France or Qantas still landed in the region. KLM attempted a brief return to Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia a few years ago. Turkish doesn't serve those countries. Itsroute to Zambia seems to be permanently closed. Egytpair also tried to serve Zambia and Zimbabwe in the 2010s.

Middle Eastern airlines have now a big presence in the region while East African airlines (Kenya Airways, Ethiopian and RwandAir) have increased their capacity in the region by serving the capitals (Harare, Lusaka, Gaborone, Lilongwe, Windhoek) and sometimes secondary cities. (Ndola in Zambia, Blantrye in Malawi, or Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe)


Kasane is located in the north of the country on the border with Zimbabwe and Zambia. It is a tourist hub like Maun. Despite not having a "big" company (based on African stantards) and a big newtork from its airport, Bostwana upgraded its airports shortly before the football world cup in South Africa in 2010. The country hoped to attract supporters would have wanted to visit the country during or just after the World Cup.

No news since March 8, 2022. 120 pax on board (flight in A321Neo operated via Kilimanjaro) But the local press said that depending on demand, the charter flight could turn into a regular charter flight.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 8349491528

Water salute: https://www.facebook.com/10007615464613 ... 983276393/