The recovery is on for Republic of Congo’s airports

But, while the country’s financial health is only gradually improving, commercial aviation has been showing positive signs of recovery for more than a year.
“Our traffic is tending to stabilise, which had not happened for more than four years, during which we lost more than 40% of our passenger traffic,” said AERCO (Congo Airports) general manager, Daniel Lefebvre.
“The trend is now positive as the significant annual decline of more than 15% seems to have halted,” he added.
Indeed, during 2019, Congo’s three main airports returned to growth with Brazzaville, Pointe Noire, and Ollombo collectively handling more than a million passengers.
Lefebvre, who was appointed GM in July 2019, explained: “The administrative capital of Congo at Brazzaville registered 622,200 passengers, while the economic capital of Pointe Noire totalled 464,400. Ollombo, the airport in central Congo, saw around 15,000 passengers.”
For the current year, AERCO intends to continue to stimulate this positive momentum. “We need to convince new airlines to fly here but, for this, we need a recovering economy. The early signs are positive,” he said.
Lefebvre heads a team of 250 employees and they are continuing their efforts to modernise the airports, while working to obtain certification for Brazzaville and Pointe Noire.
“The process is on track. We were audited last December by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and we were encouraged that they set us achievable targets by the end of 2020,” he concluded.