Airbus Study Reveals Lagos, Cape Town, Others as Key Unserved Routes

Chinedu Eze

Global aerospace and aircraft manufacturing company, Airbus, has released an analysis detailing several key unserved African routes which could provide greater connectivity for travellers, drive economic growth in local economies, and provide a significant boost in revenue for airlines.

The company also highlighted data on Africa from its latest Global Market Forecast (GMF), disclosing that several of the top unserved routes identified in the analysis are concentrated in cities such as Lagos, Cape Town, Nairobi, Dakar, and Douala.

Airbus also touched on strategic recommendations to capitalise on the opportunities of a more connected continent as well as Airbus’ capabilities to help realise this potential.

“Despite significant traffic between certain city-pairs, some identified routes still lack regularly scheduled non-stop flights. Factors such as restrictive bilateral air service agreements, economic variables, and challenges with capacity, frequency and operating cost efficiency contribute to these routes remaining unserved,” said Market Intelligence and Consulting Director, Airbus, Geert Lemaire.

“With our capacity to make analyses about route and network development potential in-house, Airbus remains committed to partnering with airlines across Africa to identify optimised fleet solutions inline with network development requirements that further stimulate the continent’s air transport industry growth and improve connectivity for travellers,” he added.

The forecast, however, predicted a 4.1 per cent growth overall in air traffic over the next 20 years, resulting in an anticipated need for 1,180 new aircraft by 2043.