Aviation Africa Research Desk  |  8 September 2026  |  Analysis

Africa’s air transport market is expanding, with passenger volume steadily growing, but much of the growth remains outward-facing.

The total capacity across Africa this September has increased by 9.4% to 25.8 million seats.

International services account for 20.0 million seats, or 78% of the total, but only 4.33 million of those international seats are directed to another African market.

Europe receives 9.82 million, more than twice the intra-African total, while the Middle East receives 4.74 million. Asia-Pacific accounts for 0.69 million and the Americas 0.46 million.

Only about one in five international seats departing an African airport remains within Africa.

Aviation carries an unusual economic weight in a continent where long overland journeys, fragmented rail networks and difficult border crossings make air links essential.

Aviation is estimated to support 8.1 million African jobs and contribute US$75 billion to Africa’s GDP, equal to 2.6% of continental output.

The long-term demand case is promising, with Airbus forecasting African traffic growth of 4.1% a year over two decades and demand for 1,180 new aircraft by 2043.

Egypt leads the September 2026 Africa Air Connectivity Score (AACS) with 98.2 points out of 100. Morocco follows at 77.2. Ethiopia, South Africa and Kenya are the only other countries above 50, scoring 57.1, 56.6 and 53.6, respectively.

Egypt has the broadest network in the dataset: 220 destinations in 73 countries served by 96 airlines.

Morocco combines 192 destinations and 63 countries with a strong low-cost-carrier presence.

Ethiopia’s advantage is geographical reach; from a smaller home market it connects to 72 countries, almost matching Egypt, with Addis Ababa functioning as a transfer hub.

South Africa records the continent’s highest monthly frequency, 17,187 scheduled flights, but serves fewer destinations and countries than the three markets above it.

Kenya combines 13,195 flights with 50 operating airlines.

The next four, Tanzania, Algeria, Nigeria and Tunisia, score between 36.1 and 41.5.

Ghana, in tenth place, scores 20.9. Africa’s aviation market is a steep pyramid, with a handful of large gateways above a long tail of thinner national networks.

The top ten countries account for 77.3% of all flights in the snapshot. The median country scores just 9.8 points.

September 2026 schedule snapshot. AACS is an index score out of 100, not a share of traffic. ‘SAATM’ records formal commitment; it does not certify implementation or market openness.

The index uses the structure of the ACI Asia-Pacific and Middle East/PwC connectivity framework as its conceptual starting point.

The ACI Asia-Pacific and Middle East/PwC connectivity framework defines total airport connectivity as direct connectivity plus indirect connectivity.

At route level, the contribution is built from available seats, a destination-size weighting and a passenger-centred quality index, divided by a scale factor of 10,000.

The quality adjustment can reflect flight and aircraft type, carrier category, alliance membership, stops and connection time.

The AACS gives 30% of its weight to direct destination breadth, 25% to scheduled flight frequency, 20% to the number of countries served, 15% to airline diversity and 10% to low-cost-carrier choice. Each input is divided by the highest value observed across Africa before the weights are applied.

Raw volume does not decide the ranking. South Africa has more scheduled flights than Egypt but a narrower destination and country footprint, so it ranks fourth rather than first.

Ethiopia has fewer airlines than several rivals, but its unusually wide international reach lifts it into third place.

The score rewards a country that connects passengers often, widely and through a varied operator base, not simply one that moves the most seats.

Cairo is Africa’s largest airport by scheduled departing seats in September 2026, with 1.79 million and growth of 11.2% year on year.

Addis Ababa follows with 1.19 million seats, up 6.5%, and Johannesburg with 1.16 million, up 5.0%.

Casablanca ranks fourth with 0.73 million, up 13.5%, while Cape Town has 0.59 million, up 11.3%.

Algeria, Marrakech, Nairobi, Lagos and Tunis complete the top ten by seat volume, at 0.58 million, 0.53 million, 0.52 million, 0.47 million and 0.46 million respectively.

The Single African Air Transport Market is intended to liberalise access among participating states. AFCAC lists 38 committed countries, with Malawi confirmed by the African Union as the 38th in February 2025.

The index records that commitment next to every country.

Seven of the top ten are SAATM-committed, but Tanzania, Algeria and Tunisia reach the top tier without appearing on AFCAC’s commitment list.

At the other end, several committed states still have very thin networks.

The African Development Bank reported that visa-on-arrival access fell from 28% of intra-African journeys in 2020 to 20% in 2025, while 51% still required a visa before travel.

The continent’s average visa-openness score was 0.45 in 2025. Every extra pre-travel requirement narrows the pool of passengers who can use a newly opened route.

International passengers departing an African airport paid an average of 3.5 taxes and fees totalling about US$66, roughly twice the comparable burden in the Middle East and Europe. West Africa alone had 78 distinct taxes and charges. Fixed charges are particularly damaging on shorter regional journeys because they can consume a larger share of the final fare.

The ranking covers scheduled passenger flights, domestic and international, in the September 2026 snapshot. Flight, destination, country and airline counts are taken from cited public schedule sources.

SAATM status reflects AFCAC’s published list accessed on 7 September 2026 and indicates formal commitment only.

The AACS is original analytical work by Aviation Africa. It is a reproducible public-data proxy inspired by the disclosed structure of the ACI/PwC connectivity approach; it is not commissioned, endorsed or certified by ACI, PwC, IATA, OAG, AFCAC, Airbus or any other source used in this article.