The African Airlines Association,says airlines in the continent will lose $3.5 billion in 2022,which is equivalent to 20% of 2019 full year revenues.
The projected revenue loss due to COVID for the third quarter of 2022 is approximately $800 million,the group said in a recent statement.
It said jet fuel price continues the upward trend,while year to date, global average price per barrel is $142.
According to the statement,impact on global airlines fuel bill is estimated at $131.6 billion for the full year.
African airlines,it said,have now resumed operations to 99.2% of routes operated before the pandemic,adding that eight African airlines have exceeded the number of international routes they operated before COVID.
It added:”This September, traffic and airlines capacity deployed reached 82.52% and 82.1% of the 2019 level respectively. Domestic market share is now at 39.5% capacity and 32.8%% of passengers carried while intra-Africa passengers carried represented 29.5% and corresponding capacity at 24%. Intercontinental traffic this month is 37.6% and capacity 36.5%”.
It said in Africa, the number of new contaminations remains low,stressing that the total case count has reached 619 million and 12.6 million worldwide and in Africa respectively.
It said the global recovery rate is 98.9%,while only 22.3% of Africans have received at least one vaccine compared to the global average of 67.9percent
On regulatory developments,the statement said the Indian government has imposed bans on certain single-use plastics (SUP) products through a series of regulations. It appears that airlines and their catering partners will not be able to source these restricted items in India.
It added:”The Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”) has published the final version of its Measures for Security Assessment of Cross-Border Data Transfers related to cross borders transfers of data outside of China.The draft measures released can be found here.Since the late 1970s, airlines with international operations have been required to file a duplicate and documented airline security program prior to, during and post scheduled services between countries.
“IATA has been working with ICAO to get this redundant requirement modified at the ICAO Annex 17 level to reduce the burden on airlines. ICAO Amendment 18 to Annex 17 is now effective and will become applicable in November 2022. For more details see IATA information paper and ICAO guidance on how best to implement these new requirements.The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on ancillary fees on 26 September.