During May 2026, African airlines bucked a global trend to increase passenger demand and capacity.
This is according to the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) latest analysis of the airline passenger market, based on comparative year-on-year (y-o-y) demand and capacity data worldwide and for each major region.
During the month, Africa saw an 8,9% y-o-y increase in demand, which was ahead of the 8,3% y-o-y capacity expansion.
Airlines on the continent achieves a 73,7% average passenger load factor (percentage of the available seats taken up by the market), which was 0,4 percentage points higher than last year.
African carriers also increased their total share of the global market to 2,2% (from 2,1% last year).
Over the same period, global demand fell by -2,2% y-o-y, while capacity shrank by -2,3% y-o-y. However, the average passenger load factor was 83,5% – an all-time high for the month of May.