African airlines carried estimate of 86 million passengers in 2023 — AFRAA

African Airlines Association (AFRAA) has estimated that the passengers carried by African airlines reached 85 million representing 89 percent of the pre-covid 2019 level in 2023.

The AFRAA Secretary General Adulrahmane Berthe dropped this hint while speaking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia during the just concluded African Aviation MRO Conference with the theme: “Strengthening Africa’s MRO and Training Capacity for the Future,” said since the last quarter of 2023, the traffic had reached the levels of 2019.

According to Berthe, in 2024, AFRAA has equally estimated the traffic to fully recover at 98 million passengers above the 2019 level while the global Intra-African connectivity has reached the pre-Covid-19 level since December 2022.

The FRAA scribe who said within the period, the number of existing connections is far lower than the real potential, however declared: “As the aviation community, we must continue the ongoing joint efforts to transform and foster a sustainable and resilient air transport system in Africa.

Speaking on AFRAA priorities for 2024, Berthe identified Air Transport sector›s priority in Africa as the need to address sustainability, stop marginalization, gain competitiveness, conquer the intra-Africa market, and grow the global market share.

“At AFRAA, we have four priorities for 2024. The first priority is safety. Safety is critical for our business. AFRAA in partnership with Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is staging the Inaugural Safety and Operations Summit on  May 15, 2024 here in Addis Ababa, back-to-back with the Stakeholders Convention hosted by Ethiopian Airlines.

“The second priority is intra-African connectivity: African airlines should cooperate more on commercial agreements. New routes development in collaboration with other aviation stakeholders is critical to facilitate the movement of people across the continent. The third priority is sustainability: Regarding environmental sustainability our actions are aimed to create awareness and built capacity within our members. While he said sustainability is not only environmental, he listed other factors to include: economic and social sustainability as well. According to him, under this priority, our ambition is to develop cost savings, revenues generations projects for our members.

About MROs and Training in Africa, he called on African Airlines, MROs, and AATOs (African Aviation Training Organisations) to cooperate better to create the needed environment for sustaining the future growth of the African Air Transport market.

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