African passenger numbers decline says AFRAA's secretary general

Passenger traffic across Africa declined by some 8.2% over the past year, Secretary General of AFRAA, Dr. Elijah Chingosho, told delegates at the 44th annual general assembly of the African airlines association

In a detailed annual report he said traffic in 2011 declined to 56 million, due to the Euro zone financial crisis and the political instability in parts of Africa, especially North Africa.

The report noted that 42% of all passengers into and out of Africa travelled on intercontinental routes, 26% travelled within Africa (intra-Africa) while 32% were domestic passengers.

Europe remains the biggest air transport market for African airlines accounting for 156 billion RPKs in 2011. Looking ahead, Europe is forecast to have the lowest growth potential at just 4.5% per year over the next 20 years.

The market to watch according to the 2011 AFRAA annual report is Asia Pacific. In 2011 Asia Pacific accounted for 6.2 billion RPKs, but with a forecast growth of 8.2% per year over the next 20 years, and little competition from the Asian carriers (at least for now), the region may well be the market to target for future passenger and freight growth according to AFRAA.

On freight, the report noted that African airlines still lack the capacity and are not properly structured to take advantage of this business segment currently dominated by non-African airlines. According to AFRAA, airlines continue to lose freight business on intra-Africa and domestic routes to road, water and rail transport systems. Of the 705,000 tonnes of freight carried in 2011, 68% was to/from intercontinental destinations, 23% to intra-Africa routes and 9% on domestic networks.

The continent recorded 68.2% average load factor in 2011, up 1.2% from 2010, compared with the industry average of 75.0%. AFRAA attributed the low load factor to a miss-match of capacity and demand, lack of cooperation among airlines and over-capacity on some routes.

On fleet, the report noted that, Africa fleet is only 4% of the total global commercial aircraft in operation and is made up of 64% single-aisle, 29% twin-aisle, 6% regional jets and 1% large jets. The average age of the fleet improved significantly to 14 years in 2011 due to the replacement of some old aircraft and the acquisition of new ones by some airlines. AFRAA predicts that over

the next 20 years, the continent will need to acquire 800 aircraft worth US$100 billion to replace some existing fleet and meet traffic growth needs.

On safety, the report noted that significant improvements have been made over the years with 38 African airlines currently registered on the IOSA registry. Of the total of 39 fatal accidents recorded globally in 2011, Africa accounted for 13% or 5 accidents.

Chingosho urged African governments to take their safety oversight responsibility seriously and called on countries with challenges in meeting their safety obligations to seek assistance through the AFCAC/ICAO initiated AFI Plan for Safety programme.

In a resolution adopted on safety, African airlines condemned the EU list of banned airlines and called upon the European Union to adopt pragmatic and constructive approaches to dealing with safety in the industry. The resolution further acknowledged ICAO as the only neutral body with a mandate to oversee to the global regulation of aviation and urged the EU to avoid unilateral regulation of the aviation industry which will serve no good but only ignite retaliation.