Air France Looks at Potential African A380 Markets

Air France is continuing a study into which international markets it will introduce its still to be delivered Airbus A380s, with executives confirming that additional destinations in Africa could welcome the ‘Super Jumbo’ in the future. The airline became the first operator to use the type on flights into the continent when it started using it on a daily rotation from Paris CDG to Johannesburg and Lufthansa is now also using it on a daily link to the South African city from Frankfurt.

“We certainly could be interested in using theA380 on other routes in Africa and will work with airports to ensure they have the required infrastructure to accept and handle the aircraft,” Julian Houdebine, Network Planning Department Manager Asia / Africa / Middle East, Air France, told The HUB during the recent Routes Africa air services forum in Bamako, Mali.

Due to historical links, Africa is a very important market for Air France. The table below illustrates O&D passenger traffic between Africa and Europe, a market that the carrier is the second largest operator with a 9.2 per cent share of the total traffic. It currently offers more than 280 weekly flights to the continent serving over 30 destinations: its partner KLM also serves a number of destinations, mainly on the Eastern side of Africa.

Air France has been serving Africa for more than 75 years and its flights to the continent now equate to a 14 per cent share of its total passenger turnover. “This has been and will remain a key area for growth for us,” explained Julian Houdebine, noting that a new link to Cape Town, South Africa has already been formalised for Winter 2011/2012. “We have been increasing our capacity in this market by around five per cent per year through new route launches and increased capacity on existing routes and we plan to continue growing at this rate,” he added.

The table above highlights Air France’s main markets in Africa. It is no surprise that the results are dominated by the French-speaking countries of North and West Africa. Morocco is currently the largest market for Air France although Tunisia and Reunion come a close second and third.