AIR ROUTE UPDATE
DESPITE NEW ROUTES, THERE IS STILL A LACK OF DIRECT FLIGHTS to many of the continent’s destinations. “It’s the reason African airport hubs are now vital cogs in the global aviation wheel – through Johannesburg in the south, Cairo in the north, Lagos in the west, and Nairobi and Addis Ababa in the east,” says Buyi Ramoshaba, HRG Africa partner manager. Airfares can also be pricey due to high demand on some routes – then add airport taxes. “In addition, many local airlines have tarnished reputations with poor safety records – the majority of carriers on the European Union banned- airline blacklist are African,” explains Ramoshaba. In recent developments, Nigeria’s Arik Air is now flying to Dakar, through its Abuja-Accra service. It is also expanding its Lagos service to the Senegalese capital to six flights a week. Tanzanian low-cost carrier Fastjet is also expanding rapidly across the eastern and southern parts of the continent. Kenya Airways has recently boosted its flights to Luanda, in Angola, from
Nairobi, and it has also started using a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on its route to Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in order to accommodate more passengers. Ethiopian Airlines already has more than ten Dreamliners; and the Moroccan national carrier, Royal Air Maroc, now has two as well. In May, Etihad Airways launched a service from its hub in Abu Dhabi to Entebbe, in central Uganda. As of June 30, Air France will resume services to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, with three flights a week from Paris-Charles de Gaulle, using an Airbus A330. From the same date, Ethiopian will fly three times a week to Cape Town, South Africa, and Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. South African Airways will introduce a direct service to Washington, DC,
from Ghana’s capital, Accra, in August. The airline also has a new programme, called Step-Up, where economy class passengers can bid to upgrade to business. Turkish Airlines will also start a thrice-weekly service between Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, and Istanbul at the end of October, and will add six more destinations in 2015. It now flies to 25 countries and already has the largest network in Africa, overtaking Air France and Emirates.
The lack of route capacity and the absence of a cohesive African airline network are the two main stumbling blocks to growth
“For example, Angolan regulations on global energy companies state that they have to keep a certain amount of currency in country,” explains Adam Knights, managing director UK at ATPI. “So, these companies want to pay for services they use, relating to their local business, with cash they earn in that country.”
STATE OF FLUX The African travel market is also in a state of flux. Back in June last year, for instance, OAG had some 93 scheduled airlines sending them data for African flights. Today, it has 88 airlines – five less, in a region that is supposed to be one of the world’s fastest growing. In 1980, there were 26 African-owned carriers flying internationally; today there are only nine.
The lack of route capacity and the absence of a cohesive African airline network are the two main stumbling blocks to growth. Air fares across Africa are also around one third higher than equivalent journeys in Europe, according to an African Development Bank report. In November 2014, all regions except Africa recorded year-on-year increases in air traffic demand, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Some put this down to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Lagos, Nigeria
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT When it comes to booking a hotel room, you won’t be inundated with choice from global hotel chains, dotted across Africa’s capitals. What you will find is many pricey rooms and a lack of hotel grading. The fact is, branded international corporations have found the continent an extremely complicated and fragmented market to work in, with dozens of different languages and
66 BBT JULY/AUGUST 2015
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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