In an impressive turn of events, African airlines have outpaced their counterparts in Europe, the Middle East, and across the globe in terms of total passenger traffic for the month of June 2023.
In recent data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has unveiled a remarkable achievement by African airlines, which saw a 34.7% increase in passenger traffic in June 2023 compared to the same period last year.
This substantial growth secured them the second-highest position in terms of percentage gains this year, with Asia-Pacific carriers taking the lead in year-to-date traffic increases.
- “African airlines’ traffic rose 34.7% in June 2023 versus a year ago, the second highest percentage gain among the regions. June capacity was up 44.8% and the load factor fell 5.1 percentage points to 68.1%, the lowest among the regions. Africa was the only region to see a decline in the monthly international load factor compared to the year-ago period.” IATA revealed.
Breaking down the passenger market data further, it becomes evident that Asia-Pacific airlines took the lead with a striking 128.1% surge in traffic in June 2023 as compared to June 2022.
Meanwhile, European carriers demonstrated a commendable 14.0% increase in traffic, followed by Middle Eastern airlines, which observed a 29.2% rise in traffic from June of the previous year.
North American carriers and Latin American airlines also saw noteworthy growth with traffic increasing by 23.3% and 25.8%, respectively, in June 2023.
The overall global landscape portrayed a positive picture as well, with total traffic for June 2023 (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) soaring by an impressive 31.0% compared to the same period in 2022.
This global growth trajectory has enabled traffic to rebound to 94.2% of the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The international travel segment has also seen substantial improvement, registering a 33.7% upswing in comparison to June 2022. Remarkably, all markets showcased robust growth, and international revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rebounded to 88.2% of the levels recorded in June 2019.
More insight
Willie Walsh, the Director General of IATA, commented on this surge, highlighting the commencement of the northern summer travel season.
- “The northern summer travel season got off to a strong start in June with double-digit demand growth and average load factors topping 84%. Planes are full which is good news for airlines, local economies, and travel and tourism-dependent jobs. All benefit from the industry’s ongoing recovery,”
- “As strong as travel demand has been, arguably it could be even stronger. Demand is outrunning capacity growth. Well-documented problems in the aviation supply chain mean that many airlines have not taken delivery of all the new, more environmentally friendly aircraft they had expected, while numerous aircraft are parked awaiting critical spare parts.
- And, for the fleet that is in service, some air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are failing to deliver the requisite capacity and resilience to meet travel demand. Delays and trimmed schedules are frustrating for both passengers and their airlines. Governments cannot continue to ignore the accountability of ANSPs in places where passenger rights regimes place the brunt of accountability on airlines,” said Walsh.
