Air Djibouti forced to shift from cargo to passengers

Air Djibouti is shifting its operations away from cargo and toward passenger service until conditions in the East African country improve, the carrier’s commercial director Ian Patrick told The Loadstar.

The small African country is notable for its extensive maritime ports at the confluence of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and acts as a commercial gateway for its larger, land-locked neighbor, Ethiopia. The state is working to integrate air cargo into the transportation matrix, but the pace has not been fast enough for some.

Djibouti’s economy is expected to expand by 6.5 percent by the end of this year, according to the latest International Monetary Fund forecast. However, according to Patrick, aviation is still under-developed, which hampers the carrier’s ability to add routes. “The problem is that if you take freight in you have nowhere to store it, so you put it out on the ramp. Is that secure? No it’s not,” he lamented to The Loadstar.

A new, modern cargo terminal is under construction and due to be completed early 2017, at the latest, which could change matters immensely. However, in the interim, Air Djibouti lacks storage space, and its current ramp storage facility is insecure.

Another complication is an unwillingness to invest in the carrier’s current hub at Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport while a successor gateway – El-Hajj Hassan Gouled Airport – is under construction. The latter is due to be completed sometime between 2018 and 2020, and will be able to handle 100,000 tonnes of air cargo per year.

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