African airlines will need to recruit some 63,000 new professionals (including pilots, technicians and cabin crew members) over the next twenty years in order to ensure optimal service delivery.
This is one of the key growth projections that were made about the continent’s commercial aviation industry by American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, as contained in its recently released Commercial Market Outlook.
According to the forecast which was obtained by Business Insider Africa, Africa’s commercial aviation market will be valued at a whopping $400 billion by 2040. And in line with this projected growth, airlines on the continent will acquire about 1, 030 new airplanes that will be valued at $160 billion.
“Africa has healthy opportunities to expand travel and tourism, coinciding with increasing urbanization and rising incomes. African carriers are well-positioned to support inter-regional traffic growth and capture market share by offering services that efficiently connect passengers and enable commerce within the continent,” said Boeing’s Managing Director of Commercial Marketing for Middle East and Africa, Randy Heisey.
Some of other factors that are expected to help drive Africa’s commercial aviation growth are the continent’s projected 3% economic growth over the next two decades, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AcfTA) and Single African Air Transport Market which are all expected to encourage cross-border trade and travels.
Also note that Africa’s middle class is expected to increase significantly during the forecast period, thereby driving up the need for air travel. As a matter of fact, annual passenger traffic is projected to grow by 5.4%, the third highest growth rate in the world according to Boeing.
In line with the foregoing therefore, African airlines will need to recruit 19,000 new pilots, 20,000 technicians and 24,000 cabin crew members between now and 2040. In the same vein, they will systematically increase their fleet size by 3.6% in order to accommodate the expected increase in air travelers.
