Kenya Dominates List Of Countries With The Oldest Airline Fleets In Africa

by · Published · Updated

Africa and North America have been earmarked as continents with the oldest airline fleets worldwide as Europe and China compete for the world’s youngest fleets. For example, Canada and Kenya have a lot of smaller carriers operating in remote areas, most of which go up to the age of 36years old. That compared with Norwegian UK’s 0.99 average aircraft age and Swiss Global Air Lines at 1.78 average age, both continents lug behind in fleet upgrade.

Owing to the fact that many African Airlines which want to expand do not have the cash for brand new aircraft, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa have been listed as countries with the oldest airline fleets in Africa and across the world. In bottom position worldwide is Kenya’s Fly SAX whose parent company is Fly 540 at an average aircraft age of 36.8 years old. African Express Airways also a Kenyan based airline came in second as one with the oldest fleets at an average of 32.9 average aircraft age.

Also on the list of Africa’s oldest fleets is Skyward Express, Kenya at an average age of 26.3 years. Fly SAX, African Express Airways and Skyward Express all have the number of the aircraft included at 5, 7 and 15 respectively.

Kenya Airways

Although Kenya dominates the list of countries with the oldest airline fleets, Jambojet has made it second position on the list of Africa’s youngest fleets at an average aircraft age of 5.1 years. This year, global aviation intelligence provider, ch-aviation also looked at the youngest fleets for larger airlines separately, because fleet renewal for these airlines is more complex and requires more capital than for small start-ups.

See also  New funding by Norsad Capital to promote the export industry in Zimbabwe 

“This recognition is yet another validation of our commitment to keeping customer safety at the core of our business. We remain committed to matching our words with action which is why we made a business decision to only acquire brand new aircraft,” said Allan Kilavuka, CEO, Jambojet.

On the list of Africa’s youngest flight, Rwanda Air topped with an average age of the aircraft being 4.2 years. Following Kenya Airways is Royal Air Maroc Express whose aircraft average age is 5.2 years.

Europe and Asia lead in lower-cost models, therefore, seeing most of the airlines based in these continents flying young fleets. “What our data clearly shows is the tremendous growth in Europe and Asia over the past few years while they move to lower-cost models,” said Thomas Jaeger, ch-aviation CEO. “And Chinese start-ups have the benefit of good access to capital for new aircraft.”

Taking out top spots for the youngest fleet on each continent were:

  • Africa – RwandAir
  • Asia – Colorful Guizhou Airlines
  • Europe – Norwegian UK
  • Northern America – WestJet Encore
  • Oceania – Air Tahiti
  • South America – Conviasa
Gathoni Kuria

Tags:

You may also like...