The continental aviation trade organisation African Airlines Association (AFRAA) estimates that air passenger traffic for February hit at 49.6 percent as African countries continued to ease travel restrictions that slowed down the industry for the better part of two years.
AFRAA stated this, in a published report on Tuesday detailing a rise in the performance by African airlines. The domestic market maintained the biggest share for capacity deployed, though traffic share saw a small dip.
Domestic demand however at 45.3 percent outperformed intra-Africa and intercontinental which remained subdued at 31.2 percent for intra-Africa and 23.5 percent for intercontinental.
On the actual number of passenger seats offered, domestic, intra-Africa and intercontinental accounted for 49.4 percent, 24.7 percent, and 26 percent respectively.
AFRAA also noted that four African airlines continued their international routes expansion, leading to an expansion in the number of international routes beyond the pre-COVID levels.
Eleven other African airlines also either re-open routes or launched new international routes.
At the end of January 2022 African airlines had reinstated approximately 78.7 percent of their pre-COVID international routes, though frequencies remained low.
It also reported that Intra-African connectivity reached 76 percent of the pre-COVID level in January 2022, and is forecast to fall to 72 percent in February because of the closure of some routes.
AFRAA attributed the continent’s still depressed passenger traffic volumes to unilateral and uncoordinated travel health restrictions imposed by some governments following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COV-2.