Virus empties skies, Africa to the rescue

When all seems to be falling apart for global airlines occasioned by deadly coronavirus, Africa appears to be backbone for sustenability for the carriers, WOLE Shadare writes

Africa as new frontier

The dynamics of the global economy are shifting apace. With uncertainty in developed markets such as the United Kingdom,  the United States, China and Europe, many airline brands are looking beyond their traditional customer bases in search of new opportunities and sources of growth.

Africa, the world’s poorest continent but also the most untapped by consumer brands, looks set to benefit. In this case, the benefits are not palatable at this point in time because of the deadly coronavirus that is wrecking havoc on global economies.

Africa is of course a huge land mass with massively varied conditions across its countries. Where some parts remain ravaged by war, famine and poverty, others are experiencing accelerated economic growth, urbanisation and a rising middle class.

There are estimated to be more than 2,000 languages spoken, and individual countries and regions have their own distinct cultures.

The purpose of this article is not to look at Africa in terms of how it has positioned itself to thrive in normal situation without the deadly COVID-19 but how foreign airlines have seen the continent as safer areas to operate their jumbo machines to because of the slow spread of the virus in the continent compared to how devastating the containment has gone in Europe, China, Asia and other parts of the world.

The fear before now

Before now, air travel data alone suggests – in order of decreasing likelihood – that Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ethiopia have the highest “importation risk,” with Cairo International Airport receiving the most travellers from areas with active transmission in China – excluding Hubei province, the epicentre of the disease, from where flights are banned.

Sudan, Angola, Tanzania, Ghana, and Kenya were identified as having a moderate importation risk, but with varying levels of health system preparedness to handle an outbreak.

Many of these countries are among the 13 African nations with a high volume of travel to and from China, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has priotised  to receive support for added measures like improved airport screening.

Lagos, Nigerian commercial capital and Africa’s largest city, is a major node of migration for both domestic and international travellers, as well as a dense network of informal settlements, all of which leave it particularly vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks.

During the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, which claimed over 11,000 lives in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, Nigeria was able to control its outbreak by quickly identifying and containing “patient zero” after he arrived at Lagos airport, and then systematically traced all his contacts.

The Trump blow

The United States President, Donald Trump further dealt the aviation sector more blow by announcing sweeping travel restrictions, including an unprecedented 30-day ban on foreigners arriving from most of Europe, a measure he said was necessary to stop new cases of coronavirus “from entering our shores.”

“As a result” of Europe’s inaction, Trump said “a large number of clusters” of coronavirus “were seeded by travelers from Europe.”

Trump mischaracterized the restrictions in his national address, sowing confusion among airline employees, travelers and fears among investors about the additional financial hit the ban poses to carriers.

American Airlines shares were down 15 per cent in premarket trading, United fell 15 per cent and Delta dropped 13 per cent.

Savanthi Syth, a Raymond James airline analyst, called Trump’s travel restriction “a baffling move that appears to be based on political theater rather than facts.”

To worsen matters, the American President on Saturday by expanding its European travel ban to include Britain and Ireland, as it seeks to contain the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.

Trump originally exempted Britain and Ireland from his 30-day ban on travellers from 26 European countries that took effect at midnight on Friday.

Empty skies

The implication of all these is that many carriers in many parts of the world are grounded. The quick spread of the disease across the world has led to situation where the skies are full of empty planes. Airlines have been ramping up their PR efforts to alleviate concerns and assure passengers that in flight, at least, the air is benign. Emirates, for example, tweeted a video stating that its aircraft cabins “have advanced HEPA air filters that remove 99.97 per cent of viruses.”

A so-called “use-it-or-lose-it” rule, enshrined under EU law, states airlines must fly 80% of their flights on a slot in order to safeguard their presence at major hubs for the next season.

It has led to a situation whereby many airlines are thought to be operating so-called “ghost planes” with almost no passengers on-board.

“Passenger demand for air travel has dramatically fallen due to COVID-19 and in some instances we are being forced to fly almost empty planes or lose our valuable slots,” Shai Weiss, CEO of Virgin Atlantic, told CNBC via email on Tuesday.

Why many countries are cancelling flights because of low load factor but are compelled to fly their planes empty because of the strict policy on slots in very busy airports, Africa has not cancelled flights as a matter of policy except some airlines who cut slightly their schedules, all frequencies for foreign airlines are running normally.

Africa had until now largely been spared the rapid spread of COVID-19, which has infected at least 135,000 people and killed around 5,000 worldwide.

Most of Africa’s reported cases were foreigners or people who had travelled abroad. Rapid testing and quarantines have been put in place to limit transmission.

Big airlines maintain schedules

All the big European carriers like British Airways, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Turkish Airlines, Air France are yet to stop coming to Nigeria or any other African countries.

Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, Delta among others have continued to operate although with not 100 per cent load factor.

An airline official told Woleshadarenews that the African routes have help to alleviate the devastating effects on coronavirus to the airlines at least by some per cenatge because of the slow and minimal effects of the disease in the continent compare to Europe, Asia and the United States.

Nigeria has not placed travel bans on any country following the declaration of the World Health Organisation (WHO) classifying the virus as a pandemic.

The Federal Government of Nigeria said there was no need for the travel bans given containment measures rolled out including self-isolation and restricted movement.

Expert’s view

President, National Association of Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA), Mr. Bankole Bernard, said he was yet to hear of any airline cancelling flights to Nigeria.

His words: “I am yet to hear any airlines that have been coming to Nigeria cancel any of their flight or stop flying on that route. As a matter of fact, I can say this to you that if Nigeria had an open skies approach, some of those international carriers will deploy two or more flights to the route if they are permitted.”

The NANTA chief hinted that many airlines in Europe and particularly in China have had their planes parked because of poor load factor that had hit many carriers.

According to him, “some of them just have their aircraft parked; sitting down in their various hubs but none of the routes that has to do with Nigeria bound has been cancelled. That shows you, yes, there would be a decline but we are still in business because it is a market that has been growing consistently.”

Last line

The scenario above shows how resilient Africa is at a time other parts of the world are battling the effect on coronavirus on global economies with the hope that sooner than later, airlines would return to normal operations