Johannesburg is in danger of losing its hub status because its dominant carrier, South African Airways, lost more than 13% of its international seat capacity between March and September this year.
This was the warning by Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) COO, Fundi Sithebe, during a panel discussion during the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Africa Leaders Forum in Stellenbosch.
Data presented earlier by Olivier Ponti, Vice President Insights at ForwardKeys (a global travel analytics company) showed that SAA’s capacity had decreased drastically, but that other airlines had taken up the slack, resulting in seat capacity on international inbound flights to South Africa now being on the rise again, with a 3.2% growth forecast for next year. However, Sithebe said SAA’s capacity cuts were diminishing the role of Johannesburg as a hub, because the key driver of a hub was its dominant carrier. She said SAA accounted for 46% of passenger numbers at OR Tambo International Airport. “The threat is real that East and West Africa will take over from Johannesburg as a hub. We really need to entice passenger (growth) policies with a dominant airline at Johannesburg,” she said. Cash-strapped SAA has been scaling back on unprofitable routes to save costs until such time that they can compete in those markets again. Asked to clarify the statistics, Ponti said all he could see in the data was a decrease in SAA’s capacities. “Where this exactly comes from is a matter of interpretation.”
Addis takes the lead
Meanwhile, good news for sub-Saharan Africa, said Ponti, was that Addis Ababa was expected to take the lead from Dubai this year, as the leading connecting hub for long-haul travel to the region.
Visa relaxations bring major opportunities
He said visa relaxations provided the single easiest tool to boost capacity. Visa facilitation was seen to result in massive growth in Chinese arrivals within six months of implementation. For example, visa exemptions in Morocco and Tunisia resulted in 440% and 214% respective growth of Chinese arrivals to those countries; Angola received 85% more Chinese after simplifying its visa procedures; and the implementation of e-visas in Ethiopia resulted in a 17% jump in Chinese arrivals.
Inbound travel boom expected next year
Ponti said inbound travel to sub-Saharan Africa was on firm ground, with seat capacity on international flights due to increase by almost 5% between now and May next year, but the challenge would be to fill all those extra seats.
He said inbound international flight seat capacity to sub-Sahara was expected to jump to 9.1% in the next four months, based on forward bookings, compared with the 4.4% growth experienced between January and October. He said the region had enjoyed steady overall growth of 4.1% from all its source markets between January and October. The biggest share of 6.7% came from the Americas, with Europe, the rest of Africa, and the Middle East contributing about 4%, while the slowest growth of 1.1% came from the Asia-Pacific region. Inbound seat capacity on long-haul and intra-regional sub-Saharan flights was well matched, both growing by about 6%.
South Africa received the lion’s share of 22% of all international arrivals in the region, despite having been a challenging year with international arrivals down from March to September due to the Cape’s water crisis and SAA’s challenges.
The fastest growing destinations in sub-Sahara were in East Africa, the top performers being Kenya (up 19%), Ethiopia (up 12%) and Tanzania (up 9%), with bookings to Zimbabwe up 12% between January and October. Forward bookings until January placed Ethiopia at the top with 40% growth, with Kenya up 24% and Tanzania up 7%.
Ponti said direct air access varied greatly across the region and left room for improvement. While Paris was connected directly to 118 cities worldwide, Addis Ababa – the region’s best connected city – was only linked directly to 65 cities, Nairobi to 47, Johannesburg to 43, with Lagos and Accra both to 30.
