The impact of the covid-19 pandemic, whose first cases in the country were reported on March 21, 2020, particularly affected Luanda airport, which saw a 78 percent loss in passenger traffic, from 466,498 in the first. quarter of 2020 to 102,778 in the same period of 2021.
In Cabinda, the second largest airport, passenger traffic decreased 69 percent, from 82,336 between January and March 2020 to 25,503 in the first quarter of this year.
In total, the number of passengers in Angola dropped from 658,050 to 157.922, that is, 500,128 few people passed through the 30 airports and aerodromes listed by INAVIC.
The number of flights practically halved, with 6373 connections between January and March 2021 against 14442 in the same period last year.
Freight and mail transport were less affected by the pandemic. The cargo handled stood at 4610 tonnes in the first three months of 2021, compared to 6903 tonnes last year, a year-on-year variation of -33 percent, while the volume of mail transported this year was 75 tonnes, against 135 tonnes in the homologous period (-44 percent).
Angola has adopted measures to temporarily suspend connections to some countries to control the pandemic, keeping its airspace closed to regular flights since 20 March.
Currently, seven international companies operate at Luanda airport, including TAP, with 11 weekly flights, in addition to the national carrier TAAG, with four more frequencies, connecting Angola to Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and South Africa.
On May 10, the government temporarily banned non-resident foreigners from Brazil and India from entering the country, establishing an institutional quarantine mandate for nationals and resident foreigners from both countries, to measure that remains until June 8 .
However, TAAG has already summarized connections with Brazil (Luanda-São Paulo), only for cargo flights, which will be made every fortnight, according to an airline source.
