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African airlines outperformed all other regions in the world in terms of increased demand for air freight shipments in February, according to the latest report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The cargo volumes of African airlines increased by 4.6% in February 2022 compared to February 2021 and their cargo capacity was 8.2% above February 2021 levels.
Overall, global air cargo growth was 2.9% in February, benefiting from, among other things, manufacturing activity increasing and the progressive relaxation of Covid-19 travel restrictions.
Willie Walsh, IATA's director general, said during a virtual media briefing on Wednesday that the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine had limited effect globally on February's cargo performance as it started very near the end of that month.
"Demand for air cargo continued to expand despite growing challenges in the trading environment. That is not likely to be the case in March as the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine take hold. Sanction-related shifts in manufacturing and economic activity, rising oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty will take their toll on air cargo’s performance," said Walsh.
As for passenger traffic, IATA reports that at the end of February 2022, African airlines' combined domestic, regional and long-haul passenger traffic to, from and within the continent was still 52% down compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2019. When compared to February 2021, however, African airlines showed a 69.5% rise in passenger traffic in February 2022.
Their capacity rose by 34.7% and their load factor climbed 12.9 percentage points to 63.0%.
