African air travel dominated by South Africa and Egypt, their national carriers, and their biggest airports

With the recent end of the winter Olympics in Vanocuver, the world’s sporting spotlight will gradually shift towards Africa and the FIFA World Cup which takes place in South Africa during June and July. Airlines have already announced a number of capacity and/or frequency increases to cater for the movement of spectators, fans and the media to and from events.

Analysis of current schedule data confirms that the South African air travel market is 50% bigger than any other in Africa, as measured by weekly seat capacity offered from the country’s airports. Five of the next seven busiest nations for air travel are those along the North African coast facing Europe. Within central Africa the largest markets are Nigeria and Kenya followed by Ethiopia and Sudan.

According to data supplied by the airlines to OAG three of the top 10 country markets have grown by 20% since last March, lead by Morocco (+26.7%), Ethiopia (+22.7%) and Tunisia (+21.8%). Just outside the top 10 are Tanzania, Angola and Ghana. Ghana’s capital Accra will soon be welcoming new international services from Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow and United Airlines to Washington.

SAA and Egyptair top; British Airways ranks sixth

Given the size of the country markets it will come as no surprise that the list of leading airlines operating from African airports is led by SAA and Egyptair. The strong position of British Airways is explained by its franchise arrangement with Comair in South Africa. On the other hand Air France’s top 10 ranking is purely down to flights from France, mainly to North Africa.

The fastest growing of the top 10 airlines is clearly Arik Air of Nigeria. Its scheduled capacity has surged by over 50% as it develops domestic, regional services and longer-haul services such as direct flights to London Heathrow. Emirates’ top 10 ranking comes from serving 16 African destinations non-stop from its Dubai hub, plus Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Entebbe (Uganda) via Accra and Addis Ababa respectively. This week it announced that Dakar in Senegal would become the airline’s 19th African destination from the beginning of September.

Three South African airports in top eight

Analysis of schedule data by airport highlights once more the importance of South Africa as Johannesburg (first), Cape Town (fourth) and Durban (eighth) all figure prominently. The other seven top 10 airports are in seven different countries.

Among the top 10 airports Addis Ababa appears to be the fastest growing with year-on-year capacity up by 30%, driven by the growth of Ethiopian Airlines. According to OAG there are 320 airports in the whole of Africa with scheduled commercial services.