On an international scale, traffic by airline operators in the African aviation industry increased 124.8 percent in January 2023.
Although Nigerian airlines witnessed growth in passenger traffic during the period of review, it was still lower than the pre-pandemic traffic volume of 18.1 million recorded in 2019, a year before the pandemic set in.
The current volume of passenger traffic, however, shows a steady increase from the very low turnout witnessed at the peak of the pandemic in 2020 where passenger traffic was a meager 1.5 million.
By the time the lockdown was put on hold and countries began opening up their borders, the figures increased to 15 million in 2021, an increase of 900 percent rise in passenger traffic when compared to 1.5 million passengers in 2020.
While reacting to the increased passenger traffic in world aviation, the Director General of, International Air Transport Association, IATA Willie Walsh, said: “Air travel demand is off to a very healthy start in 2023. The rapid removal of COVID-19 restrictions for Chinese domestic and international travel bodes well for the continued strong industry recovery from the pandemic throughout the year. And, importantly, we have not seen the many economic and geopolitical uncertainties of the day dampening demand for travel.”
NCAA also revealed that in 2021, the number of outbound passengers increased by 54.7 percent from 717,261 passengers in 2020 to 1.1 million. The figure for inbound international passenger traffic in 2022 was 1.6 million, a 45.5 percent increase when compared to 1.1 million passengers in 2021.
For domestic carriers, a total of 6.31 million inbounds and 6.36 million outbound passengers were reported which brought the air passenger traffic to a total of 12.67 million passengers in 2022.
Also, a total of 13,003 international operations were flown to and from Nigeria by 26 airlines while 80,328 domestic flights were carried out by 11 airlines.