Aircraft Movement Goes Down, But Passengers Increase

Aircraft movement at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) has declined following the reduction of flight frequencies by some African airlines whilst others have ceased operation.

This not withstanding the number passengers going through the airport continues to grow, according to statistics available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Monday.

Ethiopia Airlines and Egypt Air have reduced their frequencies by one each while Air Afrique and Air Burkina have not been consistent in their operations to Accra.

Three other Airlines - Air Ivoire, Nigerian Airways and Balkan Air - have ceased their operations to KIA.

The national carrier, Ghana Airways, has suspended its flights to Beirut and Dubai and now flies direct to Baltimore through New York instead of the two separate scheduled flights to the US.

Ghana Airways now operates two aircraft on its West Coast route instead of three and its four DC 10 aircraft have been reduced to two.

The statistics indicate that the first four months of last year recorded 3,399 aircraft movements whilst the same period this year showed 3,224, indicating a shortfall of 5.1 per cent.

Mr. Maxwell Arthur, Director of Corporate Planning of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said the shortfall in aircraft movement could be attributed to managerial problems, high cost of operations and loss of passengers to the major European airlines.

He said this has affected GCAA's revenue generation since the bulk of its total revenue is earned from this.

"Aircraft that fly over our airspace generate about 35 per cent of GCAA's total revenue whilst landing and parking aircraft earn us about 25 per cent of our revenue".

The other 40 per cent revenue is from freight, airport charges and rentals, among other things.

Mr. Arthur noted that flight frequencies of European airlines are on the increase.

KLM Royal Dutch Airline operates daily to and from Accra whilst British Airways and Swiss Air have increased their frequencies by one.

The number of passengers through the airport has, however, seen tremendous growth over the past three years.