Africa’s busiest bellyhold routes revealed

May 22, 2018

The ten busiest passenger air routes, which translates into the ten busiest bellyhold routes, in Africa have been revealed in a new study conducted by Routes, organiser of the world’s leading aviation network development conferences and events.

The research has found that the South African domestic flight between Cape Town and Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport is the busiest on the continent. More than 4.7 million passengers flew the 1,292 km between the two airports in the last calendar year.

Routes’ study analysed the top 100 aviation routes in Africa by total capacity in 2017, according to OAG Schedules Analyser, and then ordered them using passenger data provided by Sabre Airline Solutions.

Eight airlines operated services between Cape Town and O.R. Tambo International during the year. In total there was in excess of 34,000 flights between the two destinations in 2017, equating to an average of 95 flights per day.

Second in the list is the flight between O.R. Tambo International and Durban’s King Shaka International Airport. A total of 2.87 million passengers flew between the two cities, which at just 498 km is the shortest flight by distance in the top ten.

The third-busiest route links Egypt’s capital city Cairo with the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah, while the flight between Nigeria’s capital Abuja and its largest city Lagos ranked fourth. The two services attracted 1.7 million and 1.3 million passengers respectively.
The top ten routes:

1        Johannesburg O.r. Tambo (JNB) – Cape Town (CPT)
2        Johannesburg O.r. Tambo (JNB) – Durban King Shaka (DUR)
3        Cairo International (CAI) – Jeddah (JED)
4        Abuja (ABV) – Lagos (LOS)
5        Johannesburg Lanseria (HLA) – Cape Town (CPT)
6        Durban King Shaka (DUR) – Cape Town (CPT)
7        Johannesburg O.r. Tambo (JNB) – Port Elizabeth (PLZ)
8        Johannesburg O.r. Tambo (JNB) – Dubai International (DXB)
9        Cairo International (CAI) – Riyadh King Khalid (RUH)
10      Cairo International (CAI) – Kuwait (KWI)

The research has been released ahead of Routes Africa 2018, an aviation event that will take place in Accra, Ghana in July. Routes Africa is the continent’s most-established aviation forum, bringing together leading airlines, airports and tourism authorities to discuss air services to, from and within Africa.

James Graham

James Graham is an award-winning transport media journalist with a long background in the commercial freight sector, including commercial aviation and the aviation supply chain. He was the initial Air Cargo Week journalist and retuned later for a stint as editor. He continues his association as editor of the monthly supplements. He has reported for the newspaper from global locations as well as the UK.