Africa growth slowest in the world says IATA

While global passenger demand was up 5.4% in Feb 2014 vs Feb 2013, in comparison, Africa was the slowest growing region with an increase of 0.1%, according to IATA's latest passenger traffic reports.

Over the same period, African airlines added 4.1% capacity into the market, resulting in a reduction in the average passenger load factor (the percentage of fare-paying seats per plane which were sold) to 63.7% vs the global average 78.1%.
The weakness over recent months in part could reflect adverse economic developments in some parts of the continent, with the slowdown in the major economy of South Africa, as well as growing competition from airlines based outside the region.
Although the global 5.4% growth represented a slowdown compared to the January traffic increase of 8.2%, cumulative traffic growth for the first two months of 2014 was 6.9%, which compares favourably with the 5.2% overall growth achieved in 2013.
February capacity rose 5.2% and load factor climbed 0.2 percentage points to 78.1%. All regions except Africa experienced positive traffic growth.
“People are flying. Strong demand is consistent with the pick-up in global economic growth, particularly in advanced economies.” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.