Nigeria loses out on African airlines ranking on passenger traffic

Chinazor Megbolu

The country’s aviation firms have lost out of the list of top African airlines on passenger traffic ranking in 2020.

This was disclosed by the Africa Air Transport report released by African Airlines Association (AFRAA), saddled with the responsibility of ranking airlines based on domestic, intra-Africa and intercontinental traffic.

The AFRAA report showed that Africa’s air transport industry performance for 2020 covering: financial performance, passenger and cargo traffic evolution, airport ranking, intra-Africa connectivity and openness.

It also indicated that Ethiopian Airlines led the list of airlines with the highest passenger traffic, followed by Egypt Air and Royal Air Moroc.

According to the report; “the number of scheduled passengers carried by African airlines dropped from 95 million in 2019 to 34.7 million in 2020, representing a year-on-year decline of 63.7 per cent.

The reduction in traffic continued until June, before reversing with the gradual opening of borders.

“Northern Africa was the leading region in terms of passenger volumes, representing 36.6 per cent of the total continental traffic. This was followed by Eastern Africa with a share of 22.2 per cent”.

The AFRAA further explained that the only West and Central African airport in the top 10 ranking is the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

It, however, pointed out that intra-African connectivity remains low, urging African airlines to take the opportunity to develop their Intra-African network, especially in this period where the European Union (EU) has limited travels to Europe.

“Among the 54 countries in the African continent, 13 have direct flights to more than 20 African countries.

Ethiopia and Kenya lead with 30 direct flights and more to other countries within Africa,” the AFRAA report said.