African carriers record operational rise in 2015, says IATA

AFRICA carriers, including Nigerian airlines, have recorded positive year-to-date growth in their operations last year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said.

IATA noted that African airlines’ experienced their fifth consecutive month of positive traffic growth in November 2015, posting a 12.2 per cent rise against what was achieved in November, 2014.

In the data released for global air freight markets recently, IATA announced that air cargo volumes, measured in Freight Tonne Kilometers(FTK) were down by 1.2 per cent in November 2015, compared to November 2014.
Total cargo volumes, however, expanded in October 2015 compared with the previous year,while revealing that African carriers experienced a fall in demand by 6.0 per cent, even as capacity rose by 6.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, IATA has announced that the global passenger traffic results for November had indicated strong traffic growth above the 10-year average rate of 5.6 per cent.

It added that the total revenue passenger kilometers rose by 5.9 per cent, compared to the achieved level year ago.
Although below the October rate of 7.1 per cent, this largely was owing to the impact of factors that are expected to be short-lived, including the cessation of operations by Transaero, Russia’s second largest carrier and labour strikes at Lufthansa, it noted.

The Director General and Chief Executive Officer, IATA, Tony Tyler said: “Consumers continue to benefit from lower fares, which are spurring demand. The economy benefits from the stimulus to consumer spending. And airlines are starting to achieve minimum acceptable profit levels. It’s good news all around, but as we open 2016, economic risks are mounting”.

Tyler said that over the past few months, exports from Africa have held up better than they did earlier in 2015, and this could be helping boost international air travel on the region’s carriers, adding that capacity rose 9.8 per cent and load factor rose 1.5 percentage points to 65.1 per cent.

He added: “The freight performance in November was a mixed bag. Although the headline growth rate fell again, and the global economic outlook remains fragile, it appears that parts of Asia Pacific are growing again and globally, export orders are looking better”.

The comparative weakness in these regions was driven largely because the performance in November 2014 was very strong. Latin American and African markets also fell, by 6.4 per cent and 6.0 per cent respectively. The Middle East region posted 5.4 per cent growth, IATA noted.

Said Tyler: “The airline industry is delivering solid financial and operational performance. The industry’s return on capital for 2015 and 2016 is expected to exceed its cost of capital, a very rare occurrence. This means we are on the path toward financial sustainability. Consumers are benefitting from lower fares, and airlines are able to invest in new aircraft that are more comfortable, quieter and more environmentally friendly.
“Passenger demand remains strong; however, the ongoing turmoil in the global financial markets and concerns over slowing economic growth in China are casting a shadow over the New Year.
“2016 will be a historic year for aviation as States come together at the 39th International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly to discuss—and I hope agree, a market-based-measure that will allow airlines to achieve carbon-neutral growth from 2020”.