Skyridge Aviation Business Plan › Section 3 › Industry & Market Analysis

This section establishes the market within which Skyridge will
operate, sizing the opportunity from the continental business-aviation
market down to the Company’s specific served segment, and identifying
the structural demand drivers that underpin the financial projections in
Section 13.

3.1 African & Regional Business Aviation

Africa’s business-aviation fleet numbers just over 400 aircraft — a
strikingly small base for a continent of 1.4 billion people and abundant
resource wealth. Industry bodies place the active business-aircraft
population at approximately 418 airframes, of which South Africa
operates around 137, the single largest national fleet on the continent.
South Africa and Nigeria together account for roughly half of Africa’s
business jets. This low absolute penetration, set against rising wealth
and persistent gaps in scheduled connectivity, is precisely the
condition under which charter and managed private aviation tends to grow
fastest.

Market researchers expect the Middle East and Africa business-jet
market to expand from approximately USD 1.42 billion in 2025 to USD 2.31
billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of about 8.4%. Within
that, the charter and air-taxi segment is forecast to grow at close to
9.5% annually, outpacing whole-aircraft sales as users increasingly
favour access over ownership. The broader Middle East and Africa
general-aviation market is projected to rise from roughly USD 1.92
billion in 2025 to USD 2.87 billion by 2030, also around 8.4% per
year.

The aftermarket reinforces the opportunity: the African aircraft
maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) market is expected to grow from
about USD 1.61 billion in 2025 to USD 2.04 billion by 2030. A regional
operator that builds its own line-maintenance capability — as Skyridge
plans to from Year 2 — can capture a share of this spend internally
rather than exporting it to third parties.

3.2 The Wealth Engine

Private aviation demand correlates closely with the concentration of
high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). South Africa is, by a wide margin,
the wealthiest country on the continent: it is home to 41,100 US-dollar
millionaires — around 34% of Africa’s total HNWI population of roughly
135,200. Johannesburg alone hosts about 12,300 dollar-millionaires and
Cape Town about 8,500, with Cape Town’s centi-millionaire population
growing fast enough that it is projected to overtake Johannesburg in
total private wealth before 2030.

This wealth base matters in three ways. First, it is the natural
client pool for executive charter and aircraft management. Second, it is
geographically concentrated in exactly the two cities — Johannesburg and
Cape Town — around which Skyridge is building its base network. Third,
it is mobile: the same individuals travel frequently to safari
destinations, second homes, regional business interests and
international gateways, generating repeat, high-yield demand. The
Company is mindful that emigration of HNWIs is a real risk — an
estimated 18,700 left the continent over the past decade — and has
reflected this in the conservative demand ramp underlying its
projections.

3.3 Tourism & Safari Demand

South Africa welcomed 10.5 million international tourist arrivals in
2025, a 17.7% increase on the 8.9 million recorded in 2024 and 2.6%
above the pre-pandemic 2019 benchmark. Arrivals in the first quarter of
2026 reached 2.9 million, up 12.6% year-on-year, and the national target
is 15 million arrivals by 2030. Travel and tourism contributed
approximately 4.9% of GDP in 2024 and supported close to 954,000 direct
jobs. Crucially for Skyridge, the luxury segment is outperforming:
five-star hotels are the strongest-recovering category, and major
private investments — the V&A Waterfront’s multi-billion-rand
expansion, the planned Cape Winelands Airport and new luxury safari
developments — signal sustained capital flowing into premium travel
infrastructure.

Safari aviation is a particularly attractive niche. The lodges and
conservancies of the Greater Kruger, the Okavango Delta, Victoria Falls
and the private reserves of Zambia and Namibia are frequently hours of
difficult road travel from the nearest scheduled airport but minutes
from an unimproved airstrip. Turboprop aircraft such as the Pilatus
PC-12 and Cessna Caravan are purpose-built for this mission, and
high-end travellers increasingly regard private air transfers as an
expected component of a luxury itinerary rather than a discretionary
extra.

3.4 Resource, Energy & Aeromedical Demand

Beyond discretionary travel, Skyridge addresses a robust base of
non-discretionary demand. Mining and energy operations across the
Copperbelt, the DRC, Mozambique’s gas fields and Namibia’s emerging oil
province require regular, reliable movement of crews, engineers and
executives to locations that scheduled carriers serve poorly or not at
all. These contracts are typically multi-month or multi-year, providing
revenue visibility and high aircraft utilisation that balance the
seasonality of leisure charter. Aeromedical evacuation — both scheduled
repatriation and emergency response — adds a further layer of resilient,
premium-priced demand that is largely insulated from economic
cycles.

3.5 Key Demand Corridors

Skyridge has prioritised a set of high-value corridors that combine
wealth, resources and tourism. These routes are characterised by thin or
absent scheduled service, long road alternatives and a clientele willing
to pay for time and certainty.

3.6 Market Sizing — TAM, SAM, SOM

Translating these drivers into a served-market estimate, the Company
frames its opportunity across three concentric layers. The total
addressable market (TAM) is the full Southern African private-aviation
and charter spend; the serviceable addressable market (SAM) is the
portion reachable from Skyridge’s base network and fleet mix; and the
serviceable obtainable market (SOM) is the realistic share the Company
expects to capture within the plan horizon, consistent with the revenue
build in Section 13.

3.7 Market Data Summary

The principal market statistics underpinning this plan are
consolidated below for reference, with their sources.

Table 3. Consolidated market-data summary and
sources.

Confidential — this business plan is provided to prospective investors and lenders for evaluation purposes only and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of Skyridge Aviation (Pty) Ltd.