Data sent by email from the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) showed that South African airport arrivals at ACSA airports grew by 13.1% month-on-month and 8.5% year-on-year in March. This was just above the 7.8% increase in 2025.
ACSA splits its data into four categories, namely international, regional, domestic and unscheduled. This is then consolidated into a total.
March 2026 arrivals split
The largest category is the domestic category, which accounted for some two thirds of arrivals in March 2026. Accordingly, what happens in this category largely determines the total. In March domestic arrivals grew by 14.8% month-on-month and 9.9% year-on-year.
The strong monthly rise is in part due to March being a longer month than February. In addition, the Easter holidays start at the end of March. This did not affect the year ago comparison as the Easter holidays in 2025 were very similar to the Easter holidays in 2026.
The international category was the most affected by the war. This is because a fair amount of international air traffic to South Africa come from the Middle East hubs of Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai.
These were affected as major international airlines avoided the war zone. The result was that the year-on-year growth slowed to 4.9% from 8.6% in December. The monthly change was an 8.2% rise.
The regional arrivals continued its strong growth as our neighbouring states improved their economies. Angola and Namibia is attracting international attention as countries seek to diversify their oil supplies away from the Middle East. The year ago increase was 10.8% in March after a 16.5% surge in December. The monthly change was a massive 23.9%.
2025 arrivals
Passenger arrivals at ACSA airports rose by 7.8% in 2025. However, the total of 20.159 million is still only 94.1% of the 2019 total.
Domestic arrivals grew by 7.7% in 2025. This shows how dominant growth in this sector for the total increase. Domestic arrivals were nevertheless only 93.2% of the 2019 total. This implies that this category has room for expansion.
International arrivals increased by 8.1% and was 96.0% of the 2019 total. The move by Cape Town airport to attract more airlines should result in this category exceeding the 2019 total in 2026.
Regional arrivals rose by 8.9% and was 96.7% of the 2019 total. Unscheduled arrivals fell by 3.5% in 2025. They were only 93.4% of the 2019 total.
Prospects
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that there have been headlines about closed airspace, reduced operations at some airports, major re-routing to avoid conflict zones, and fuel shortages.
This means that many airlines cannot operate their normal carefully planned schedules.
“And even if the war ends today—which we all hope for—remedies for airline schedules will not be immediate,” IATA said.
Some airlines have made pre-emptive cancellations to give passengers time to plan around the disruptions.
IATA said re-starting operations will take time for aircraft and crews to re-position. Schedules need to be rebuilt. Fuel supplies must be replenished. Networks need time to recover. Getting back to normal will take months, not days.
South African airport arrivals will mostly impact international arrivals.
