African airlines grow 6% but earn just $1.30 per passenger as open skies stall

African airline chiefs arrived in Nairobi with a growth story and left with a deadline problem.

At the 10th Aviation Africa Summit, held at the Sarit Expo Centre on September 9 and 10, 2026, carriers largely agreed on the diagnosis. The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), launched by the African Union in 2018, has been signed. What remains is to make it work.

RwandAir chief executive Yvonne Makolo told the airlines session that the industry had to move beyond talking and signing. Governments, civil aviation authorities (CAAs) and airlines, she said, needed to put a clock on implementation: fixed deadlines, followed by delivery.

AeroTime attended the summit, themed “Breaking the Mould”, which drew about 2,500 delegates from more than 100 countries and representatives of 135 airlines and operators.

Demand is not the constraint

Demand is growing. Seat capacity across Africa rose 8.8% year on year in August 2026, according to AFRAA, with intra-African capacity up 10.5%. Revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rose 5.8% in July.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) recorded 7.8% growth in African airline traffic in 2025 and forecasts another 6% in 2026, ahead of the 4.9% global rate.

Profitability is a different matter. IATA expects African carriers to earn a combined net profit of $200 million in 2026, a margin of just 1%. That amounts to $1.30 per passenger, against a global average of $7.90. African airlines still carry only 36.7% of intercontinental traffic to and from the continent, according to AFRAA’s June 2026 data.

Signatures without a clock

SAATM now counts 38 African Union member states, representing more than 80% of intra-African traffic, according to ICAO. In June 2026, governments adopted the Lomé Ministerial Declaration to accelerate implementation.

There has been progress. ICAO reported intra-African connectivity rising from 14.5% to 23%, with African operators launching 108 new routes between September 2022 and April 2025. But a sizeable gap remains between signing up to liberalisation and putting it into practice. That is the gap Makolo wants governments to address with deadlines.

Outgoing Kenya Airways chief executive Captain George Kamal, who also chairs AFRAA, has described what that gap means for passengers. In an interview with AeroTime at the summit, he said a journey between neighbouring countries 11 or 12 hours apart by road can take 21 hours by air.

Kamal leaves Kenya Airways on September 30, 2026. His resignation was announced on September 1. He told the session that the airline’s strategy would remain in place after his departure. For the continent more broadly, he argued for greater cooperation between airlines through codeshares and block-space agreements.

“I don’t have an aircraft to cover all the 54 countries of Africa,” he told AeroTime.

The summit provided one example of that approach. Kenya Airways and RwandAir agreed to extend their codes to destinations beyond their respective hubs. Kenya Airways already runs a codeshare with Qatar Airways, launched in October 2025.

Taxes cut, taxes invented

Esayas WoldeMariam Hailu of ASKY Airlines pointed to another obstacle: taxation. Côte d’Ivoire has cut aviation charges, while Sierra Leone is considering doing the same. Other governments, he warned, are introducing new taxes that risk undermining traffic growth. He cited a study finding that a 10% rise in connectivity lifts employment growth by 2% and GDP by 1%.

Recent developments illustrate the contrast. ECOWAS states agreed to abolish selected air transport taxes and cut passenger and security charges by 25% from January 1, 2026. Côte d’Ivoire adopted three decrees on April 29, 2026, becoming the first member state to implement the measure. Few others have followed.

Ghana inaugurated a committee on August 20, 2026, to implement the ECOWAS rules, but only after a dispute over new levies, including an $18 security charge and a $100 infrastructure fee. In Kenya, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) has backed an IATA request for exemption from a proposed 16.5% VAT on aircraft spares and components.

The burden can be substantial. A fare simulation on the Abidjan–Dakar route in January 2026 showed taxes and fees of 257,100 CFA francs (about $455), compared with a base fare of 218,100 CFA francs (about $385), according to Agence Ecofin.

IATA puts African taxes and charges at least 15% above the global average. At the summit, IATA regional vice president Kamil Alawadhi singled out passenger data charges of $45 per sector in Tanzania, $30 in Gabon and $50 in Equatorial Guinea.

Kamal illustrated the potential effect of lower prices with a Kenya Airways Boeing 777 flight to Mombasa (MBA), where seats were sold for KSh6,600 (about $51), close to the price of a train ticket. The aircraft filled with first-time flyers.

Aviation contributes $75 billion to Africa’s GDP and supports 8.1 million jobs, according to IATA.

A cost base built to fail

Panellists also highlighted the continent’s higher operating costs. Jet fuel can cost 20% to 40% more than elsewhere, they said. Maintenance is more expensive, while visas add further friction and cost.

IATA’s figures are somewhat lower but point in the same direction. Fuel in many African markets is 17% above the global average and accounts for about 40% of airline operating costs, compared with roughly 25% globally. Unit costs are estimated at about double the global average.

“Aviation does not improve by accident,” Alawadhi told delegates.

The Middle East war has added to the pressure. Around 70% of Africa’s jet fuel imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to S&P Global. In the week ending August 21, 2026, jet fuel averaged $169.01 per barrel in Africa, against $163.87 globally, AFRAA reported.

Airlines also continue to struggle to repatriate revenue from some markets. Blocked airline funds have fallen from a peak of $1.5 billion in July 2023 to $624 million in July 2026, but Africa still accounts for about 70% of the global total.

Kenya Airways offers an example of how those pressures feed into airline finances. The carrier reported a pre-tax loss of KSh15.92 billion (about $123 million) for the first half of 2026, up from KSh12.17 billion a year earlier. It cited higher fuel costs and spare parts shortages.

Engine maintenance delays had already kept three of its nine Boeing 787-8s out of service for long periods in 2025, pushing the airline back into the red.

Fleets: small today, twice the size by 2045

Boeing’s 2026 Commercial Market Outlook for Africa, published in Nairobi a week before the summit, puts the continent’s commercial fleet at 755 aircraft. It forecasts 1,625 by 2045, with passenger traffic growing 5.8% a year.

African airlines will need 1,165 new aircraft over the period, including 870 single-aisles and 240 widebodies. Africa currently accounts for just 2% of global aircraft deliveries, according to AFRAA.

The continent’s three East African hubs illustrate the scale and variety of those ambitions.

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, operates more than 167 aircraft and has about 124 on order, including purchase rights. In January 2026, it confirmed an order for nine Boeing 787-9s to expand a network of 145 international destinations.

Kenya Airways operates nine Boeing 787-8s at the core of its long-haul fleet. Under Project Kifaru, its turnaround programme, it plans to grow the fleet to 60 aircraft by 2032, once grounded aircraft are back in service.

RwandAir is adding five Airbus A330-200s. The first arrived in August 2026 and four more are due by year-end. Management said at the summit that it aims to double the fleet within five years.

Its growth is closely tied to Qatar Airways, a codeshare partner since 2021. Qatar has retired its A330 passenger fleet and is offering its A330 pilots temporary assignments with RwandAir. One of Qatar’s A330s has already moved to the Rwandan carrier.

Does every country need an airline?

The session’s sharpest disagreement concerned national carriers.

One argument was that connectivity should be the priority and that governments need to support airlines to achieve it, particularly in landlocked states that depend heavily on air transport. Rwanda was cited as an example of a government using direct investment in its airline to support wider economic ambitions and connectivity.

The opposing view was that not every country needs its own airline. Governments, the argument went, should identify the areas in which they are competitive and concentrate investment there.

That approach, however, depends heavily on cross-border cooperation — precisely the area where SAATM implementation remains incomplete.

Supporters of flag carriers also pointed to the wider aviation ecosystem they can create, from employment and airport activity to training academies and maintenance capability. Panellists argued that investors in African aviation should bring training and maintenance capacity with them instead of simply leasing part of a business.

Boeing forecasts $140 billion in demand for aviation services in Africa between 2026 and 2045, including $90 billion in maintenance, alongside a requirement for 75,000 new pilots, technicians and cabin crew. Airbus, which has more than 300 aircraft in service with African airlines, estimates a need for about 30,000 new mechanics over 20 years.

Airbus told the session that countries do not necessarily need a vast aviation infrastructure to develop useful capabilities. It pointed to the Seychelles, where a single runway and hangar support a substantial volume of passengers.

Time, cost and certainty

Kamal reduced the priorities to three words: time, cost and certainty.

Time means granting landing permits and slots early enough for airlines to sell tickets. Cost means reducing taxes and charges on intra-African travel. Certainty means putting commercial and ground-handling agreements in place that airlines can rely on across borders.

None of those requires a new aircraft order. They do, however, require governments and regulators to act.

Kamal will continue to make that case as AFRAA chairman after leaving Kenya Airways.

African aviation does not appear to have a shortage of demand, ambition or growth forecasts. The question raised repeatedly in Nairobi was how quickly governments can turn agreements already signed into changes airlines and passengers can actually see.
Discover more insight into African aviation, through AeroTime’s media partnership with AviaDev AfricaAviaDev Insight is the first podcast dedicated to the African aviation industry, created by Jon Howell, Founder and Managing Director of AviaDev Africa, Africa’s premier event dedicated to developing air connectivity.The post African airlines grow 6% but earn just $1.30 per passenger as open skies stall appeared first on AeroTime.

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