The global representative body for the airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), has published a graph charting the recovery (in percentage terms, not absolute numbers) of air passenger traffic and capacity in Africa. The graph, too low in resolution to reproduce here, has data points for at least 50 African countries.

The graph has two axes, the vertical one being the number of airliner seats available during the first quarter of this year (1Q23) in comparison to those available during the first quarter of 2019 (1Q19). The horizontal axis plots the number of airline passengers flying into, within, and out of each Africa country, again in 1Q23 and also as a percentage of the 1Q19 figures; 2019 was the last year before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1Q23 some 19 African countries surpassed their 1Q19 figures for both air passenger traffic and airline seats, meaning that they had not merely recovered from the pandemic but had returned to a growth path. These countries included Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nigeria and Togo. Further, Tunisia recorded a recovery in both passenger traffic and capacity that was fractionally more than 100%, in each case.

Another eight countries exceeded their 1Q19 passenger traffic but their airliner capacity was still below (or just at) 1Q19 levels. This group included Algeria (at just over 100% of 1Q19 passenger traffic), Kenya and Morocco.

The remaining African countries charted on the graph had not achieved full recovery in either passenger traffic or airline seat capacity by 1Q23. These countries included Comoros, Djibouti, Lesotho, Madagascar, South Africa and Zambia.

It must be stressed again that these figures chart recovery in percentage terms, not in absolute numbers. Also, they cover all air passenger traffic for the African countries, regardless of the country of origin of the airlines carrying the passengers. A recovery in passenger traffic into an African country does not automatically mean that that country’s own airline or airlines have also experienced a recovery.