The resumption of air transport is still timid in Africa
Audio 03:29
A South African Airways plane, March 14, 2020 in Polokwane, South Africa.
AFP / Guillem Sartorio
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
7 min
International flights to Ghana are due to resume on Tuesday with the reopening of Kotoka airport.
It has been closed since March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Air traffic is still slowly restarting in Africa, which is slowing down the overall recovery of the economy.
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Most of the airports in West African capitals have resumed service in July.
Tunisia and Egypt have done the same to save their tourist season.
But the return to normal is still a long way off.
ECOWAS heavyweight Nigeria resumes international flights only on Saturday.
About a dozen African countries remain closed to foreign flights, especially in southern Africa, this is obviously the case of South Africa, the country most affected by the pandemic.
Where traffic has picked up, travel remains very complicated.
Regional connections are not always guaranteed, some companies have disappeared from the screens, and many specific exceptions are in effect.
A frequent example: if its nationals are unwanted in a foreign country for suspicion of Covid, the African country generally applies reciprocity.
Finally, all travelers remain subject to mandatory tests before their departure and upon their arrival on African soil.
Because of all these constraints, operational flights are often far from being fulfilled, noted a Burkinabè colleague.
This partial reopening of the African sky penalizes the entire economy of the continent
This is what organizations representing the sector affirm.
Two weeks ago, the International Air Transport Association, Iata, lowered its traffic forecast for the African continent.
Traffic is expected to drop 54% over the year.
As a result, estimates Iata, the production of wealth dependent on air transport could be cut by 35 billion dollars across the continent.
In the spring, the organization was betting on 28 billion losses.
More than one in two airline jobs could disappear in the crisis.
Out of 6.2 million jobs linked to air transport, 3.5 million are threatened.
Example among others: Kenyan Airways plans to do without half of its pilots, 200 of them should leave the company within two years.
African Airlines Association calls for the creation of an emergency fund to help airlines in difficulty
You should know that these African companies have benefited from the boom in trade in recent years but they are still very fragile, most are not profitable.
And they only have a small portion of the international flight market, around 20%;
the competitors from the Gulf and Europe sharing the rest.
Most of these companies lack cash to meet their fixed costs, they sometimes have only a few weeks of cash ahead of them;
this is why the Kenyan company is in the process of being renationalized.
South African Airways, the South African company which was in compulsory liquidation before the Covid-19 has finally received aid from the State which is now seeking buyers to limit the crash.
Ethiopian Airlines, the continent's model airline, is in the running.
It is the only company that is currently thinking about development.
In accordance with its plan, it is currently opening a new terminal at Addis Ababa airport.
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