The International Air Transport Association has revealed that African airlines have recorded a 124 per cent growth in passenger traffic in January 2023 while Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has said that air passenger traffic rose to 16.2 million in 2022 from 15 million in 2021, showing an 8 per cent increase.
The Switzerland-based IATA, which represents international airlines globally, said the recovery in air travel demand was continuing in 2023, based on January traffic results.
In a statement released by IATA, “African airlines’ traffic rose 124.8 per cent in January 2023 versus a year ago. January capacity was up 82.5 per cent and load factor climbed 13.9 percentage points to 73.7 per cent, the lowest among regions,” IATA said in a statement
Globally, traffic is now at 84.2 per cent of January 2019 levels with domestic traffic for January 2023 rising to 32.7 per cent compared to the prior year, according to the airline body.
It said the growth was aided by the lifting of the zero-COVID policy in China. Total January 2023 domestic traffic was at 97.4 per cent of the January 2019 level.
Also, IATA said international traffic climbed by 104.0 per cent versus January 2022 with all markets recording strong growth, led by carriers in the Asia-Pacific region. International RPKs reached 77.0 per cent of January 2019 levels.
IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh, said: “Air travel demand is off to a very healthy start in 2023. The rapid removal of COVID-19 restrictions for Chinese domestic and international travel bodes well for the continued strong industry recovery from the pandemic throughout the year. And, importantly, we have not seen the many economic and geopolitical uncertainties of the day dampening travel demand.”
For Nigeria, the data showed that the increase in traffic was below the pre-pandemic levels recorded in 2019 which was 18.1 million, even as it noted that there has been a steady increase since the height of the pandemic in 2020 which had a total of 1.5 million passengers.
The figure rose to 15 million in 2021, when countries began reopening their borders, a 900 percent rise in passenger traffic when compared to 1.5 million passengers in 2020.
The agency revealed that the number of outbound passengers increased by 54.7 percent in 2021 to 1.1 million from 717,261 passengers in 2020, while inbound international passenger traffic was 1.6 million in 2022, a 45.5 percent increase when compared to 1.1 million passengers in 2021.
The data further showed that domestic carriers had a total of 12.67 million passengers, made up of 6.31 million inbounds and 6.36 million outbound. It noted that in 2022, 26 airlines carried out a total of 13,003 international operations to and from Nigeria, while 11 airlines operated 80,328 domestic flights.
In 2022, 37 airlines flew over Nigeria, with 26 airlines running 13,003 foreign flights and 11 airlines operating 80,328 domestic flights.