Overview:
According to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), of the 198,961 passengers, 104,160 were arrivals while 94,800 were departures, hence an average of 6,418 passengers per day.
Entebbe International Airport handled 198,961 passengers in December 2023, the highest number in the airport’s history.
According to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), of the 198,961 passengers, 104,160 were arrivals while 94,800 were departures, hence an average of 6,418 passengers per day.
This is a rise from an average of 5,500 per day for October 2023.
Vianney Mpungu Luggya, the spokesperson of UCAA, attributed the rise to the festive season and tourism.
Also, Entebbe received a total of 1,932,000 passengers in 2023, surpassing the pre-COVID-19 pandemic total of 1.8 million recorded in 2019.
Entebbe International Airport also recorded a total cargo of 59,000 metric tons during the same period. In 2023, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that African airlines moved 960 thousand tons of freight, representing 96.7 percent of the 2019 figures.
Luggya anticipates similarly high figures for January 2024 due to the 19th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Group 77 (G77) plus the China Summit, which is expected to attract a large number of international delegates.
The NAM summit, which officially commenced at the Commonwealth Speke Resort Munyonyo on Monday, hosts delegates from 120 countries across Africa, Europe, America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific, alongside 18 observer states and 10 observer organizations. Uganda aims to host between 1,000 and 1,500 delegates during the event from January 15 to 23, 2023.
In September 2023, Uganda’s aviation industry demonstrated substantial improvement, surpassing global and regional averages following a significant safety audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Uganda received a commendable 72.17 percent in the assessment audit, highlighting the country’s commitment to aviation safety.
As per IATA’s report, global airlines carried 3.4 billion passengers in 2022 compared to 2.2 billion in 2021. African airlines carried 67 million passengers in 2022, reflecting a 55.8 percent growth but accounting for only 2 percent of global traffic.