Dakar Yoff Airport

A diverging West Africa: Ghana finds over-capacity while Nigeria struggles with too little

Only 402km apart, Accra and Lagos could not have more different aviation markets. Accra has found itself with excess capacity, and consequently Brussels Airlines and United Airlines are withdrawing their respective services from Brussels and Washington DC while Delta Air Lines will reduce overall capacity. Meanwhile in Nigeria, the country's lack of capacity has become a national discussion after the Government threatened to suspend British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic for having expensive fares. But the focus has shifted to the Government and its unwillingness to liberalise air service agreements, which are operating at the maximum for UK carriers, as well as its lack of support for a homegrown aviation industry.

This month Air Nigeria will commence Lagos-London services, adding to the market and further utilising Nigerian capacity to the UK, raising the chances of Nigeria being willing to expand its air service agreement with the UK, which has seen little change since 1999. There are 14,000 weekly seats from Ghana to Europe and 33,000 from Nigeria to Europe, despite Nigeria having a population and GDP five to six times larger. The potential in Nigeria is waiting to be unlocked by a government that in the Corruption Perceptions Index ranks 143rd out of 182nd most corrupt nations.

Delta continues macho expansion with high-risk 'strategic' capacity moves

Delta Air Lines continues to expand its network adding new city pairs, as well as service on existing routes. Some of the service is seasonal and much of it will only be implemented in 2011, but the roll-out of additional service is impressive.

UAE seeing ‘unprecedented’ growth in aircraft traffic

The strong growth at UAE airports continues, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi leading the way. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) reports that air traffic movements in the country grew at an “unprecedented” rate of 12.8% year-on-year over Sep-2010, with 52,691 aircraft movements in the month. This follows on from an 8.7% year-on-year increase in aircraft movements Aug-2010. (Note: traffic figures have been skewed by the shifting of Ramadan into August, which was partially responsible for the slowdown in that month).

Turkish Airlines moving into Africa: will Turkey emulate China?

Turkish Airlines (THY) is being encouraged to launch services between Istanbul and Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It is not the first time that the airline has been linked to new African services but on this occasion comes the admission there is a wider agenda involving trade and specifically mining and energy. Could Turkey be about to emulate China, which has been flooding the African continent with executive manpower - especially where there are sparse resources to be mined - using essential air transport as bait?