International Air Transport Association (IATA) has disclosed that African carriers may lose at least $6billion (N2.6 trillion) compared to the previous year to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, which has grounded activities on the continent in the past two months.
The international association also said that Nigerian carriers risked losing $.99 billion (about N390 billion in revenue loss, 4.7 million fewer passengers, 125,400 jobs and $0.89 billion in contribution to Nigeria’s economy in 2020 due to the global crisis.
To address the situation, IATA called for government relief measures for the continent’s carriers from governments.
IATA said that the expected revenue loss to the continent’s carriers was $2 billion (about N800 billion) more than was expected at the beginning of the month.
The association hinted that job losses in aviation and related industries could grow to 3.1 million, saying that this was half of the region’s 6.2 million aviation-related employment. It hitherto estimated was two million job loss for workers on the continent.
It added that full-year 2020 traffic is expected to plummet by 51 per cent compared to 2019. Previous estimate was a fall of 32 per cent.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) supported by aviation in the region could fall by $28bn from $56 billion. Previous estimate was $17.8 billion
