By Ikechi Uko
Nigeria and West Africa’s biggest Airline Air Peace just announced a suspension of it’s twice weekly flights to Johannesburg in South Africa.
They cited reasons of visa delays by South African High Commission in Nigeria, issues with foreign currency and aviation fuel. South African Airways, SAA has reduced their frequency to 3 times a week instead of daily flights between Lagos and Johannesburg .
This reduction of capacity is real and is likely to affect travel between South Africa and Nigeria.
The sudden oversupply of seats was similar to how the viable route between Lagos Nigeria and Accra Ghana collapsed in 2016/17 with aviation fuel and dollar scarcity coupled with over supply of available seats by 5 Airlines. Eventually 4 of the Nigerian Airlines abandoned the Accra route and the only Ghanaian Airline Africa World Airlines, AWA increased daily frequency to 5 daily flights to Lagos and 2 to Abuja. Today AWA is the leading international Airline to Nigeria with more flights than any other Airline flying into Nigeria.
The South African scenario is consequent on the availability of Visa.
According to the Hub Head of South African Tourism, SAT in West Africa Mr. Thekiso Rakolojane 54,000 Nigerians travelled to South Africa in 2018. They spent €882M in South Africa. Nigeria has over 200 million people so many of them want to travel to South Africa. Over 100,000 travelled to South Africa in 2010 and since then the number has been dropping. Over 250,000 Nigerians travelled to Dubai in 2019. South Africa is their favourite Tourist Destination outside Dubai.
In the same year 21000 Ghanaians travelled to South Africa spending €50m. Each Nigerian spent about €16000 in South Africa while the Ghanaian traveller spent €2380 in South Africa for the same period. This is according to an article published on a South African website Tourismupdate.co.za last week.
The Nigerian traveller is a high yield tourist yet gets just about the same number of visas or slightly more than the for Ghanaians.
Ghana has a population of roughly 30 to 34 million with annual travel population of about 300,000 to 600,000 but Nigeria has a population of 200 million and an annual international travel population of between 4 million and 6 million.
So Visa is the major issue.
54000 visitors in 2018 correspond to about 1000 Visas issued weekly. Currently South African High Commission does not issue up to 1000 visas a week.
The available seats offered on Air Peace when they were using the B777 was 638 seats every week. When they changed to the Embraer E2 the number dropped to maximum 248 seats per week. Because Johannesburg is slightly above the normal range of the E2 it has to reduce passenger numbers for fuel. SAA with an A330 on a daily flight had 1673 seats available each week but with it’s reduced frequency has 717 seats available. ASKY the Lome based Airline flies 7 times a week with 2 direct flights from Lagos and 5 from Lome using a B737-800. It has a weekly available seat capacity of 1078 to Johannesburg.
Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and Rwandair offer additional seats weekly through their bases in Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Kigali. Altogether you need about 2000 Visas a week to fill up these flights to South Africa. And that is not yet possible.
With decreasing number of Visas in the last 2 years from the Embassy, SAA and Air Peace will suffer more of the loss as ASKY with it’s huge regional network from over 20 destinations feeding into Lome will benefit from the shrinking capacity. Also the 3 East African Airlines will stand to benefit from the loss of Air Peace and SAA.
With the image of the Nigerian resident in South African not improving the visa issues might not change. Meanwhile Nigeria offers all Africans including South Africans visa on Arrival.
In the Last 3 years the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa has been testy. Nigerian residents have been accused by South Africans of getting involved in crimes and Nigerians also accused South Africans of xenophobia. It came to a head in 2020 when the Nigerian Government with the help of Air Peace had to evacuate some Nigerians from South Africa at the height of the attacks on black Africans in South Africa.
Until the visa issue improves the sustainability of direct flights between Lagos and Johannesburg will be in doubt.
