African Airlines Association (AFRAA) says: “Since November 2023, traffic carried by African airlines exceeded 2019 level. In January 2023, African airlines RPKs where 2.06% above the level of the same month in 2019 while ASKs where 7.1% above.” The AFRAA report estimates that African airlines will carry around 98 million passengers in 2024.
At some major African airports (Johannesburg, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Lusaka, Cairo, Casablanca, Abidjan and Lagos), intra-Africa connectivity reached or exceeded pre-Covid level since December 2022.
On cargo, AFRAA says “149.6 million Kgs moved to/from Africa in November 2023, among which African airlines represented 30.8%.”
AFRAA predicts that “2023 will see an increase in airline revenues and the narrowing of revenue gap compared to 2022. The full year 2023 revenue shortfall of African airlines will be around US$200m or less, compared to 2019 full year. The 2022 full year passenger’s revenue gap was US$3.5 billion for all African airlines combined, compared to 2019.”
The AFRAA reports notes that “Jet A1 price continues to fluctuate marginally from week to week. The global average jet A1 price ended the week of 19 Jan 2023 up 2% at $108.92/bbl.”