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Commercial air traffic to double in the next 10 years

Commercial air traffic to double in the next 10 years

According to Airbus Global Markets Forecast destination traffic to and within Namibia to double in last 10 years.

“The immediate market will require 370 additional aircraft to serve the Namibian and south-Western African market by 2035,” according to Airbus Global Markets Forecast for 2016 which speculates an additional 410 thousand passengers on 10 key international long-haul markets in the next 20 years.

According to the report, this is because demand for air travel to Namibia significantly increasing with the main origin and destinations number rising above 10,000 passengers per year, mostly from Germany and UK which are set to further grow.

Namibia’s traffic is supported by a dynamic economy and tourism which according to a seperate set of indicators is also set to grow strongly in the future. The 2016 forecast notes how total origin and destination traffic in Namibia will grow at 5.5% per year up until 2035, while international traffic is set to grow at 5% per annum.

Air traffic with Namibia’s surrounding countries is also set to grow strongly. Intra-regional flights for Southern and Western Africa at 4.9 % and the rest of Africa at 7.2%

Acting Managing Director of Air Namibia, Advocate Mandi Samson, said at the implementation of Air Namibia’s five year strategic plan and annual stakeholders event last week in Windhoek that Air Namibia has seen improved business operations as a result of a turnaround strategy.

Samson said at the stakeholder event that Air Namibia is awaiting Governmental approvals that will follow announcements for the introduction of three new African destinations to their route network this year.

“Our Revenue by Available Seat per Kilometre (RASK) this year compared to last year improved slightly by 1.3%, increasing from N$ 0.76 in 2015/16 to N$ 0.77 in the current year.” The Cost by Available Seat per Kilometre (CASK) remained stable at N$ 0.98,” Samson said.

On the specific airlines route focus, Samson said that overall all of Air Namibia’s routes are doing better this year compared to last year, except for one route with a major negative performance which prevented Air Namibia from gaining increase in RASK of more than 10%.

“In our quest to attain operational break-even after the development of this five year plan, we have implemented an optimum network and schedule plan.” Samson said, adding that these network and schedule plan changes include introducing the Gaborone / Durban route.

The route in question that prevented the national carrier from gaining increase in available seats per kilometre is Luanda, given the financial crisis in Angola. The Luanda route saw a decline of 31% in passenger totals and a 46% decline in total revenue.

About The Author

Freeman Ya Ngulu

Freeman Ngulu is an investigtor, an author and a keen entrepreneur. His speciality is data journalism for which he loves to dig deep into topics often ignored by mainstream reporting. He tweets @hobameteorite.