African airlines outperform other regions in post-Covid recovery

December 9, 2020 in Business, Markets, Transport by Editor

Alexandre de Juniac, the IATA Director General said fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 and governments’ continued reliance on heavy-handed quarantines resulted in another catastrophic month for air travel demand.

African airlines’ traffic sank 78.6 pc in October, improved from an 84.9pc drop in September, but this was the best performance among all the regions according to latest figures from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). African capacity contracted 67.5 pc, and load factor fell 23.8 percentage points to 45.5 pc

IATA said this week the recovery of passenger demand continued to be disappointingly slow in October. Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO said on Tuesday, “Fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 and governments’ continued reliance on heavy-handed quarantines resulted in another catastrophic month for air travel demand. While the pace of recovery is faster in some regions than others, the overall picture for international travel is grim. This uneven recovery is more pronounced in domestic markets, with China’s domestic market having nearly recovered, while most others remain deeply depressed.”

Previously the busiest region, Asia-Pacific airlines’ October traffic collapsed 95.6 pc compared to the year-ago period, which was unchanged from September. The region continued to suffer from the steepest traffic declines. Capacity plummeted 88.5 pc and load factor sagged 49.4 percentage points to 30.3 pc, the lowest among regions.

European carriers saw demand sink 83.0% versus a year ago, worsened from an 81.2% pc decline in September. For a second consecutive month, Europe was the only region to see deterioration in traffic. Capacity contracted 70.4 pc and load factor fell by 36.7 percentage points to 49.5 pc.

Middle Eastern airlines reported a 86.7 pc traffic drop for October, but an improvement from the 89.3 pc in September. Capacity dived 73.6 pc, and load factor declined 36.6 percentage points to 37.0%.

North American carriers’ traffic tumbled 88.2% in October, a slight improvement from a 91.0pc decline in September. Capacity plunged 73.1 pc, and load factor dropped 46.2 percentage points to 36.2%.

Latin American airlines experienced an 86.0 pc demand drop in October, compared to the same month last year. The region showed the greatest improvement on September when year-on-year demand was down 92.3 pc. October capacity was 80.3 pc down and load factor dropped 23.5 percentage points to 57.7 pc, which was highest among the regions.

According to IATA, total demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) was down 70.6 pc compared to October 2019. This was just a modest improvement from the 72.2% year-to-year decline recorded in September. Capacity was down 59.9 pc compared to a year ago and load factor fell 21.8 percentage points to 60.2 pc.

International passenger demand in October was down 87.8% compared to October 2019, virtually unchanged from the 88.0 pc year-to-year decline recorded in September. Capacity was 76.9% pc below previous year levels, and load factor shrank 38.3 percentage points to 42.9 pc.

Domestic demand drove what little recovery there was, with October domestic traffic down 40.8 pc compared to the prior year. This was improved from a 43.0 pc year-to-year decline in September. Capacity was 29.7 pc below 2019 levels and the load factor dropped 13.2 percentage points to 70.4 pc.