Travel Demand Rises by 135% in Africa in May

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said African airlines recorded a 134.9% increase in Revenue Passenger Kilometres in May 2022.

Revenue Passenger Kilometres is a measure of passenger demand in a given market.

According to IATA’s latest report, African airlines recorded a 16.4% increase in the average load factor per flight to 68.4% and capacity grew by 78.5% in the month of May. However, the report also noted that this was the lowest among regions surveyed.

In the month under review, African airlines carried 1.9% of the total world passenger air travel market.

Willie Walsh, director-general, IATA, said, “The travel recovery continues to gather momentum. People need to travel. And when governments remove COVID-19 restrictions, they do. Many major international route areas – including within Europe, and the Middle East-North America routes – are already exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels.

“Completely removing all COVID-19 restrictions is the way forward, with Australia being the latest to do so this week. The major exception to the optimism of this rebound in travel is China, which saw a dramatic 73.2 per cent fall in domestic travel compared to the previous year. Its continuing zero-COVID policy is out-of-step with the rest of the world and it shows in the dramatically slower recovery of China-related travel.”