Traveling by plane in Africa is difficult compared to most of the rest of the world. There are far fewer flights and they are more expensive than in other regions.
Fewer Flights
Compare these maps from a flight radar app showing the positions of airplanes flying over different regions of the world.
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| Southeast Asia |
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| Europe |
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| Eastern USA |
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| Africa |
In southeast Asia, Europe, and the eastern US, you can see a mass of planes heading in different directions, though mostly avoiding Russia and Ukraine (for obvious reasons). But Africa seems comparatively empty of airplanes, except for some clusters near a few major hubs, such as Addis Ababa and Douala.
If you search for flights between major African cities, it is often difficult or impossible to find direct flights. For example, I'd love to be able to fly directly between N'Djamena in Chad and Yaounde in Cameroon. There's a seminary in Yaounde where some of my Chadian friends are working on getting their masters' degrees. If I wanted to fly into Yaounde to attend their graduation ceremonies, I'd have to change planes in Douala, or even fly far out of my way to Addis Ababa. The same scenario can be repeated between many large African cities.
Smaller cities in Africa often have no commercial flights anywhere nearby. It's a 14-hour drive from Sarh, where I live, to the nearest international airport in N'Djamena to catch a commercial flight (Bangui in neighboring CAR is technically about the same distance from here as the crow flies, but closed borders, terrible roads, and dangerous war zones make that route impassible). You'd be hard pressed to find a city of any size in America or western Europe that would require such a long drive to get to an international airport!
Expensive Flights
It seems counter-intuitive that air travel in the poorest continent on earth would be more expensive, yet it is!
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| Flight cost from Paris to New York |
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| Flight cost from N'Djamena to Bamako |
As you can see, it costs twice as much to fly from Chad to Mali, just a couple countries away, than it does to fly from Paris to New York, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean!
So you get the picture. Air travel in Africa is inconvenient and expensive. Why is this the case? Basically, it boils down to two things: politics and poverty. But let me explain:
- High fees. Airlines can't fly over other countries without asking permission, and they can't land in airports without signing agreements. These agreements and permissions usually involve fees and taxes, and African governments impose some of the highest in the world. The airlines have to either raise the plane ticket costs to cover the expense, or they simply don't fly to that country. Some countries may not give permission at all, in which case airplanes must route around their air spaces.
- Fewer passengers. Because there is so much poverty in Africa, there are fewer business travelers than in Europe or North America, and not many Africans in very poor nations like Chad can afford to fly for pleasure even at the economy class level. Even those that do travel between African countries for business are likely to travel on an economy class ticket, even though they are flying for business purposes. Airlines don't make much money on economy class tickets: they make most of their money on business and first class. If they don't have enough business class travelers to make a profit, they raise the cost of economy class to make up for it.
- Poor infrastructure. Air travel requires a tremendous amount of complex infrastructure in order to work well. Airplanes, roads, runways, airports, security, staff training, fuel, etc - all of these things require a significant investment to build and maintain, which are just not the highest priority in many African governments' limited budgets.
Cheaper and more convenient air travel would make many things easier in Africa, and would likely help the countries to develop their economies better. But it doesn't look like it will improve very much anytime soon.
But I would love to be proven wrong.
References:
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/18102-5-reasons-why-flying-within-africa-is-so-expensive
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