A new study conducted by Routes revealed the busiest passenger air routes in Africa. The South African domestic flight between Cape Town and Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport is the busiest on the continent but what about the busiest international route?
Routes’ study analyzed 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.
The busiest route on the continent; South African domestic flight between Cape Town and Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport: More than 4.7 million passengers flew the 1,292 km between the two airports in the last calendar year. Eight airlines operated services between Cape Town and O.R. Tambo International during the year, with the average cost of a ticket at US$78. 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.
The busiest international route on the continent is between Egypt’s capital city Cairo and the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah.
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)
A total of 2.87 million passengers flew between Cape Town’s O.R. Tambo International and Durban’s King Shaka International Airport.
The busiest international route that links Egypt’s capital city Cairo with the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah attracted 1.7 million passengers, while the flight between Nigeria’s capital Abuja and it’s largest city Lagos that ranked fourth attracted 1.3 million passengers.
