What are the largest aviation systems, airlines and airports in this part of Africa? In our special capacity analysis reports this week to support the forthcoming Routes Africa forum in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, we look in greater detail at aviation within Southern Africa and from the region to the rest of the world.

On scheduled air services within Southern Africa, air capacity remains dominated by Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport, although its share of the total capacity has declined over the five year analysis period from 35.6 per cent in 2009 to 31.7 in 2013. The important ‘Golden Triangle’ of destinations in South Africa – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – accounts for a massive 60 per cent of all departures in the region. Although capacity has declined in each of the last two years (down 0.2 per cent in 2012 and down 2.6 per cent in 2013) through the five year analysis available seats were up 9.2 per cent.

The dominant role of South Africa’s domestic air transport business in the region is clear when you study the largest airlines in the region with all of the top five carriers by intra-Southern Africa capacity in 2013 emanating from the country. The largest operators from outside South Africa were TAAG Angola with a 5.7 per cent capacity share and LAM Linhas Aereas De Mocambique with a 4.3 per cent share.

Looking at schedule data for the past two years shows that seat capacity on flights within and from Southern Africa declined 2.4 per cent in 2013, versus 2012, with departures down by a slightly shallower rate of 1.2 per cent. In the tables, below, we highlight the largest airlines and airports in this market by seat capacity in 2013 and compare this with the previous year.

The data is all supplied by OAG Aviation using its OAG Schedules Analyser tool.