This is a best prospect industry sector for this country. Includes a market overview and trade data.
Last Published: 7/14/2019

Overview

Five Tunisian airlines operate in the country, two state-owned and two privately held.  Tunisair, the country’s national flag airline and the major carrier serving Tunisia’s international markets, remains heavily subsidized by the GOT.  Under increased competition from domestic and foreign carriers, the company launched new routes in 2016 and 2017, with a focus on sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern destinations.  Tunisair currently operates 28 aircraft (22 Airbus and six Boeing) and runs a parts factory in-country.  Passenger traffic on Tunisair for the first quarter of 2019 showed a modest increase of 1% compared to the same period in 2018.  Passenger traffic is expected to increase further in the summer season.  Tunisair is struggling with a low punctuality rate (42% in 2018) and a high volume of debt.

Tunisair Express, Tunisia’s second publicly owned airline and a subsidiary of Tunisair, operates domestic and short distance international flights through a fleet of two ATR turboprops and one Bombardier CRJ jet aircraft. 

Of Tunisia’s three private airlines, Nouvelair is the largest and operates a fleet of eight Airbus A320s.  Tunisavia, a private commercial fixed-wing and helicopter operator, services desert and offshore petroleum installations.  Express Air Cargo is a cargo carrier serving African and European countries from Tunis and operating two Boeing 737s.   
Eighty export-oriented aerospace companies, mostly French, operate in Tunisia across a wide range of sectors, including aircraft maintenance, aerospace wiring, engineering and consultancy, metal sheet cutting and assembly, software development, and electronics.  The aerospace industry employs about 17,000 people as of 2018.  The Tunisian Aerospace Industry Association, a leading Tunisian aerospace industry trade organization, has 51 member companies.

As a result of a 2009 Memorandum of Understanding between EADS (reorganized as Airbus Group in 2014) and the GOT, EADS launched an aeronautical industrial zone near the Port of Rades.  The facility constructs aircraft sub-assemblies for Airbus.

Latécoère, a major supplier of Airbus, runs two cable factories in Tunisia, employing 900 people.  Another major supplier, Zodiac Aerospace, runs four production sites for passenger seats and metal structures, employing 3,000 people.  These projects create a complete and complementary avionics supply chain system.  In partnership with Telnet Holding, a high-tech Tunisian engineering company, Altran established an engineering and research and development platform specialized in advanced aerospace technology.

With an initial capacity of 7 million passengers annually, the first phase of an international airport at Enfidha, built by the Turkish Holding Company Tepe Akfen Ventisres (TAV) under a 40-year concession, was finished in 2009.  Originally conceived as a potential hub for flights to Sub-Saharan Africa, the airport remains underutilized, and expansion plans are suspended indefinitely.  Currently, the airport operates mostly charter flights, and it has absorbed passenger traffic from the nearby Monastir airport.

Discussions are ongoing with the EU on an Open Skies agreement, and the GOT has indicated interest in the negotiation of an Open Skies agreement with the United States.  Tunisia signed an Air Transport Agreement with Canada in 2009, and Tunisair started flights to Montreal in June 2016.

Opportunities

Tunisia’s tourism sector is progressively recovering after being hit by major attacks on tourist sites at the Bardo museum and Sousse hotels in 2015, which negatively affected Tunisia’s air carriers.  Private sector airlines, in particular, appear to be increasingly exploiting underserved European markets.  An Open Skies agreement with the EU would expand competition and allow lower airline ticket prices for cost-sensitive tourists.   
Regarding aeronautics, Tunisia is positioning itself as an industrial hub with high added-value capability in the manufacture of avionics, aircraft servicing, engine components, air-traffic-control equipment, and other areas.  The GOT provides tax breaks and other incentives for foreign investment in this sector.  Tunisia also offers an educated, relatively low-cost workforce, including trained engineers, and very close proximity to Europe.

Web Resources

Tunisair [Tunisia’s national air carrier
Civil Aviation Agency (OACA)
Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA)


 

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