Africa’s air traffic accounts for just 5% of world total as Lagos airport handles 7.3m passengers in 2016

Africa’s air passenger traffic accounts for a meager five percent of world total, which stood at 3.7 billion

in 2016, according to Jumia Travels, Nigeria’s online booking portal.

In its aviation infographics seen by businessamlive, Jumia ranked Nairobi tops in domestic air traffic capacity by African cities. Nairobi is reported to have 22 percent handling capacity, while Tunis at second position has 14 percent capacity. Others are nine percent, Durban five percent and Algiers two percent. Lagos did no feature in the top five.

The Jumia infographics also showed that Johannesburg was the busiest airport in Africa in 2016 with an air traffic of 21 million followed by Cairo with 16 million, Cape Town 10 million, Addis Ababa 8.7 million, Casablanca 8.6 million, Algiers 7.5 million, Lagos 7.3 million and Nairobi 7.0 million.

It noted that Dubai, London, Johannesburg, Accra, New York and Amsterdam as popular international flight destinations in Nigeria, while popular domestic flight destinations include but not limited to Abuja, Kano, Calabar, Benin City.

Analysts say the low passenger traffic in Africa could be attributable to high cost of air travel, poor infrastructure and few low-cost carriers.