Tim Harris of Helm Growth Partners says African destinations can improve hub competitiveness by treating air connectivity as an economic growth tool, not only an airport development function.
Across African aviation, hub competitiveness is often discussed through infrastructure, aircraft capacity, market access, operating costs, visas and regulatory reform. At the AFRAA 14th Aviation Stakeholders Convention, Tim Harris, CEO of Helm Growth Partners, brought a different layer into the discussion: the ability of destinations to organise themselves around air connectivity and present airlines with a stronger, more credible growth case.
Speaking during his presentation, “Positioning African Aviation Hubs for Competitiveness”, Harris linked aviation hub development to the wider economic growth agenda. His focus was not on airports in isolation, but on the role that cities, regions and countries can play in building the conditions that make routes more viable, resilient and commercially attractive.
“Our continent is 18% of the world’s population, but just 2% of global passengers,” Harris said. “This is by far the most interesting growth frontier for global aviation.”
The imbalance sits behind much of the opportunity in African air transport. It also explains why the competitiveness of African hubs cannot depend only on long-term policy reforms, however important they remain. SAATM implementation, cost structures, visa regimes and regulatory reform continue to shape the operating environment, but destinations still have agency within those constraints. They can influence how routes are presented, supported, marketed and retained.
Harris’ presentation pointed to a shift in the structure of African aviation itself. The continent’s traditional primary hubs, including Cairo, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Casablanca, remain central to African and intercontinental connectivity. However, a more distributed hub environment is emerging, with secondary hubs such as Abidjan, Accra, Algiers, Dar es Salaam, and Lagos gaining prominence as traffic flows change and new growth centres develop.
Alongside that shift, tourism-driven origin-and-destination hubs are becoming more significant within regional aviation networks. Cape Town, Durban, Marrakesh, Mauritius and Zanzibar were among the destinations Harris identified as increasingly relevant, particularly as travellers look beyond single-destination itineraries and seek the ability to combine several African experiences within one trip.
For regional airlines, that trend changes the value of connectivity. The role of a carrier is not only to feed passengers into major gateways, but also to connect tourism markets to each other. Cape Town, despite its geographic disadvantage as a conventional hub, has become a stronger tourism hub for Southern Africa because air connectivity, destination demand and coordinated market positioning have worked together.
The deeper lesson for African airports is that hub status is no longer determined only by geography or terminal scale. Network relevance can be built when a destination understands its demand base, works with its economic stakeholders and gives airlines a reason to believe that future traffic will grow.
Collaborative air service development sat at the centre of Harris’ presentation. Under the traditional airport-led model, the airport’s business development team carries most of the responsibility for meeting airlines and trying to secure new traffic. Larger, highly competitive airports may be able to lead that work independently, but many emerging African hubs need a broader structure.
A collaborative model brings together airports, aviation authorities, transport and tourism ministries, tourism boards, investment promotion agencies, regional and city governments, private sector companies and industry associations. The purpose is to turn route development into a shared economic priority rather than a narrow airport revenue exercise.
For airlines, the broader coalition is important because route decisions depend on more than runway capacity or a traffic forecast. Carriers need confidence that demand can be stimulated, that the destination understands its market, that route support will be coordinated and that the public and private sectors are aligned behind the service. Where that structure is in place, the destination is better positioned to move quickly, share risk, diversify funding and provide sustained marketing support.
Cape Town Air Access was used as an example of this approach. Developed more than a decade ago, the programme brought together South African Tourism, Airports Company South Africa, provincial government, city government and private sector partners to make a coordinated case to airlines. In its first five years, the project secured 19 new routes for Cape Town and added 1.5 million seats. Over 10 years, Harris said the figure had grown to almost 30 new routes.
The same model has since been applied in other Southern African markets. AirConnect Namibia has added eight new routes and seven new carriers in three years. Botswana Air Access, created by the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana and supported by tourism and economic stakeholders, has added four new routes and 200,000 international seats in two years.
These examples show why air service development is moving closer to a destination strategy. Cape Town’s performance was presented as a model that can be adapted where governments, airports and private sector stakeholders are prepared to align behind a route growth agenda.
Momentum is a critical part of the process. Airlines are not only buying into current demand; they are also assessing future market growth. Cape Town’s work on the United States market, including the arrival of United Airlines in 2021 and the subsequent entry of Delta Air Lines, showed how one successful long-haul route can help create a stronger growth narrative and draw further airline attention.
Harris also referred to Eswatini Air and the way new connectivity introduced in 2023 unlocked further network growth. The underlying point is that different hub models can build momentum when new services are linked to a credible market story.
Aviation data remains essential, but data alone is no longer enough. Airlines can access similar datasets, compare market size, review traffic flows and assess competitor activity. The destination has to explain what the numbers do not yet fully show.
“Your story has to be contained in the data, but the truth is everybody has the data,” Harris said.
A stronger route business case needs to connect tourism, corporate demand, premium leisure, trade, air-freightable exports, foreign direct investment, emerging industries, airport infrastructure and carrier support. Tourism remains central because leisure passengers fill much of the aircraft capacity moving across the continent, but the front of the cabin and the cargo hold are also key. A destination that can demonstrate business travel, investment momentum and trade potential has a stronger proposition than one relying only on visitor numbers.
In many markets, the excitement around new routes can distract from the need to protect existing services. Harris cautioned that destinations should look after the airlines already committed to them before moving too quickly into new route introduction.
“It’s much, much easier to retain a route than it is to get a new one,” he said.
Destinations should work with existing carriers to sustain current routes, then support expansion through larger aircraft, year-round operations or additional frequencies. Only once that base is secure should new route introduction become the priority. For African hubs seeking long-term competitiveness, growth must be built on route stability rather than announcement-driven expansion.
The resilience question has become more urgent as global disruption affects African connectivity. Harris referred to the recent Middle East crisis and its impact on African carriers connecting through the region, as well as Middle Eastern carriers serving Africa. The figures he presented showed the scale of exposure, with Qatar Airways and Emirates both losing significant seat capacity into and out of the continent during the period analysed.
For Africa, the lesson is not only about one disruption event. It is about network structure. Heavy reliance on super-connectors can create vulnerability when geopolitical or operational disruption affects those connecting hubs. Stronger regional links, more direct access to major source markets and a more diversified route portfolio can improve resilience.
The comparison between Windhoek and Durban illustrated that point. Windhoek, with a smaller domestic base but stronger regional links and direct connections into major European markets, was less exposed to the Middle East disruption. Durban, with a much larger domestic market but a more limited international network dependent on the Middle East, Istanbul and a small number of regional services, experienced a greater impact.
For airports, airlines, tourism authorities and economic development agencies, this comparison raises a strategic question about what kind of network they are trying to build. A hub designed only around available connections may deliver short-term access, but a hub designed around regional relevance, direct market access and diversified connectivity is better positioned to absorb external shocks.
African aviation’s competitiveness agenda often returns to the same structural constraints, and those constraints remain real. However, Harris’ presentation showed that destinations are not passive within that environment. They can build stronger route cases, coordinate public and private stakeholders, retain existing carriers, support expansion and present a clearer growth narrative to the airlines they want to attract.
As African aviation moves towards a more multi-hub environment, the destinations that succeed are unlikely to be defined only by airport size or existing traffic volumes. They will be the cities, regions and countries that understand air connectivity as part of economic development, then organise around it with enough discipline to turn demand potential into sustainable routes.
