Botswana aviation industry experienced in a surge in passenger movement in the second quarter of the year as reported in the latest brief by Statistics Botswana. The agency’s Transport & Infrastructure Stats Brief for Q2 2016 noted that a total of 193,457 passenger movements were recorded, which was an increase of 21.3% from 159,256 passenger movements recorded in Q1 2016.
Wilderness Air is a player in local aviation industry (Pic By www.wilderness-air.com)
According to Stats Botswana, 56.3% of these movements were international and the remaining 43.7% were domestic passenger movements. “Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, Q2 2015, international movements recorded an increase of 7.3% while domestic movements increased by 8.5%.”
Gaborone recorded 50.9% of total passenger movements, which was an increase of 7.4% when compared to Q1 2016. Maun recorded 31.6%, Kasane recorded 11.8%, Francistown 5.6%, while Selibe Phikwe and Ghanzi recorded 0.02 and 0.03% respectively.
“The bulk of international passenger movements were recorded at Gaborone airport, making 70.4% of total international passenger movements. Gaborone, Maun, Kasane and Francistown recorded an increase in both international and domestic movements when compared to the previous quarter Q1 2016,” it said.
Despite the fact that non-scheduled aircraft movements dominated, more passengers are found in the scheduled movements. Scheduled passenger movements contributed 76.4% of the total movements while non – scheduled and private contributed 23.0% and 0.6% respectively.
Scheduled and non-scheduled movements recorded an increase in air passenger movements when compared to the previous quarter, Q1 2016; non-scheduled movements increased by 44.9%, scheduled movements increased by 16.0%. Private movements declined by 21.5%.
Compared to Q2 2015, scheduled and non-scheduled movements still recorded an increase in air passenger movements. Scheduled movements went up by 9.7%, non – scheduled increased by 6.0%. Private movements recorded a decrease of 57.2%.
Stats Botswana added that 75.3% of the aircraft movements were domestic movements. Both international and domestic movements recorded an increase in aircraft movements; international movements increased by 13.7% while domestic movements increased by 38.9 percent when compared to the previous quarter, Q1 2016.
There was a total increase of 31.6% in aircraft movements during Q2 2016, when compared to the previous quarter. Q2 2016 realised a total increase of 5.6% when compared to Q2 of the previous year, 2015.
Aircraft Movements by Airport and Month
The months of April, May and June contributed 30.0%, 35.5% and 34.6% of the total aircraft movements respectively. As always, the majority of the aircraft movements (58.8%) were recorded in Maun and
30.0% of those were recorded during the month of April, while May recorded 35.8% and June recorded 34.2% of aircraft movements made in Maun. Gaborone was second with 21.7%. S/ Phikwe recorded the least number of aircraft movements contributing only 0.1%.
