Report No. 49194 africa infrastructure country diagnostic

Much can be said about how thin the African air transport markets really are. Though this section of the report is focused on the distribution of various kinds of traffic within the continent, it is useful to put these numbers into some perspective:

The traffic for all of Sub-Saharan Africa (roughly 72.3 million seats in 2007) is just ahead of the air traffic related to the Spanish capital Madrid (est. 68.5 million in 2007). The combined domestic traffic for all of Sub-Saharan Africa (27.5 million) is just over twice the overall traffic for the French city of Nice (13.1 million in 2007). All markets combined in both North and Sub-Saharan Africa have about 122.4 million seats, while Atlanta alone, in the United States, was at roughly 103.9 million in 2007. John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York overall traffic alone has exceeded all intercontinental traffic in all of Africa for both 2001 and 2004.

However, if one looks at growth rates, Africa has outpaced the rest of the world. While the rest of the world had an overall traffic growth of 18% between 2001 and 2007, total African traffic has actually gained nearly 40%, and Sub-Saharan traffic even as much as 46.5%. The two charts below demonstrate the overall size of African markets versus the rest of the world, and the related growth.

Source: Analysis on data provided by Seabury ADG

Source: Analysis on data provided by Seabury ADG