As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to afflict Africa, with the number of deaths increasing while the rate of vaccination remains slow, the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) has warned that the lack of support from governments and development finance institutions for the continent’s aviation and tourism industries is a major threat to the African commercial aviation sector.
AFRAA warned that, should governments fail to respond to the appeals of itself, the African Civil Aviation Commission and the African Union to provide financial support and relief to those carriers that have been most affected by the pandemic, there is a danger that the African aviation industry could collapse.
The association reports that it is forecasting that African airlines will suffer a full-year revenue loss of $8.2-billion for this year. This will be roughly equivalent to 47.2% of their full-year revenues during 2019, the last pre-Covid-19 year. Last year, African airlines suffered total losses of $10.21-billion, or 58.8% of their 2019 revenues.
Last month, air passenger traffic carried by African airlines came to 46.8% of the level recorded during the same month in 2019. August 2021 air passenger capacity was 54.6% of that in August 2019.
However, there were significant differences in air passenger demand between the domestic, intra-African and intercontinental markets. While domestic demand last month was 58.9% of that in August 2019, the respective figures for intra-African and intercontinental demand were 22.7% and 18.4%.