Nigeria missing on African airlines ranking by traffic

Nigerian aviation companies failed to make the list of top African airlines in terms of passenger traffic in 2020.

This is according to the Africa air transport report recently released by African Airlines Association (AFRAA), which ranked airlines based on domestic, intra-Africa and intercontinental traffic.

The report gives an in-depth analysis of Africa’s air transport industry performance for 2020 covering: financial performance, passenger and cargo traffic evolution, airport ranking, intra-Africa connectivity and openness.

Ethiopian Airlines topped the list of airlines with the highest passenger traffic, followed by Egypt Air and Royal Air Moroc.

“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%. The reduction in traffic continued until June, before reversing with the gradual opening of borders,” the report reads.

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

On airports, AFRAA said the only West & Central African airport in the top 10 ranking is the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

It noted that intra-African connectivity remains low and advised 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 report adds.

The federal government recently announced that the new national airline will commence operation in the first quarter of 2022.