Africa Aviation Outlook 2020: Performance lags, pending integration

Africa continues to lag the rest of world aviation. It has the fewest annual seats, the smallest fleet of narrowbody and widebody jets, the lowest number of aircraft on order, and weakest passenger load factor of all world regions. It also has the second smallest ratio of intra-regional to intercontinental seats (after the Middle East, where transfer traffic boosts intercontinental capacity).

The small scale of Africa's internal market is a function of many factors, not least infrastructure and aeropolitical restrictions. This gives its airlines only a small base on which to build intercontinental operations in competition with other airlines. Non-African airlines have 40% of all seats within Africa and more than 70% of seats on intercontinental routes.

Against this backdrop, Africa's leading airline Ethiopian Airlines stands head and shoulders above other operators. Ethiopian is profitable, while growing faster than any other airline in Africa's top 10 and managing a growing portfolio of associated subsidiaries.

The response to challenges faced by other, loss-making, national airlines ranges from proposed privatisation (South African Airways) to proposed nationalisation (Kenya Airways). In North Africa, EgyptAir, Royal Air Maroc and Air Algérie have slowed growth or cut capacity in recent years.

Africa's underperformance looks set to continue, pending the slow implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market.