Exposing Africa’s aviation soft underbelly

Africa’s aviation is in doldrums. The sector is, however, not all gloom as experts chart path for its rescue. WOLE SHADARE writes

The ills

The challenges facing the African aviation industry range from state protectionism and lack of an enabling environment for new investors to high taxes and charges, which are above comparative world averages and a poor safety record due to ageing fleet and insufficient regulatory supervision.

Likewise, a lot of air transport infrastructure across the continent is in need of upgrading. Africa accounts for less than two per cent of global airline passenger traffic and about one per cent of global airlines’ cargo.

To discuss the predicaments of the continent’s airlines, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) held BBC’s Africa Debate on issues affecting the continent’s aviation sector in Accra, Ghana and proffered ways to tackle the challenges.

 

The pane

The panelists were Ghana’s Minister of Aviation, Cecilia Abena Dapaah Africa, Union’s Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid, Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde Gebremariam and Publisher, Woleshadare.net, Wole Shadare.

The panelists also looked as other issues such as how expensive it costs to travel across Africa, which many believe is very expensive.

On many routes, it is easier and quicker to fly to Europe than back to the continent – but this often comes at a price.

Difficult intra Africa flights

Flying from London to Athens is not generally considered a massive undertaking.

It’s given that the journey will be direct, take three-and-a-half hours, and Europeans will not require a visa. The biggest decision is likely to be which meal to select in-flight.

Now imagine if the same journey was routed via Moscow – ridiculous! Yet that is the situation when travelling across Africa, where convoluted flight itineraries are unfortunately the norm.

Let’s take the example of a trip from  Algeria to Cameroon, as the crow flies, a journey the same length as London-Athens. There is no direct flight. The fastest route, via Istanbul, takes 24 hours and involves three separate take-offs and landings.

The less time-economical route can take up to 30 hours – half the time it took the Virgin Atlantic Global flyer to circumnavigate the globe.

Adding insult to injury, the flight from Algeria to Cameroon costs 80 per cent more than London-Athens.

This is truly a disturbing paradox. Sadly the problems caused by an unconnected Africa are not limited to inconvenient travel schedules.

Far bigger are the opportunity costs to the economies of the continent’s 54 nations and the region as a whole. Trade and tourism are hindered and investment opportunities lost. And it’s not just about economics.

Aviation connects people. Africa would be a less fragmented continent with greater air connectivity.

It also brought to the fore 20 years since the Yamassoukoro aviation treaty was signed.

This treaty was supposed to create radical change for pan-African travel – but little has changed. A major hurdle to the growth and expansion of carriers on the continent has been the lack of “free skies”.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), about 80 per cent of the air traffic to Africa is on non-African airlines.

National airlines’ question

There are a few national carriers as many have gone under due to mismanagement or corruption.

Ethiopia Airways is currently the only well performing carrier as Kenya and South African airline struggle with financial constraints.

The minister disclosed that the Yamoussoukro Decision (1999) was signed by 44 countries, which agreed to liberalise intra-African air transport, including allowing non-national airlines to land and take passengers to a third country — so-called “fifth freedoms” of the air.

She lamented implementing this decision could do much to reduce fares and increase air traffic across the continent. All of these sounds fine in theory, but what about in practice? A comprehensive 2010 World Bank study led by Charles Schlumberger looked at a number of specific examples of what has happened when routes have been liberalised in Africa.

Study

A more recent study was presented at the AfDB’s African Economic Conference by Megersa Abate, an Ethiopian transport economist, looking at air transport routes to and from Addis Ababa.

While Mr Abate did not find any impact of liberalisation on prices, he did find large increases in the number of flights — up to a 40 per cent increase. He concluded that in the long run, competition is likely to reduce prices.

Even without price drops, more flights and more routes are clearly needed.

Despite these potential gains, at present over a quarter of air routes in Africa are served by only one carrier.

In total, up to 70 per cent of air transport is served by a monopoly carrier.

Too often it comes down to simple protectionism, driven by fear that the national carrier won’t be able to compete with the continent’s big players from Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa as well as other competitors from the Gulf and beyond.

Foreign airlines’ dominance

Despite the huge potential, African carriers are playing second fiddle to foreign airlines, which are said to be controlling 80 per cent of the region’s aviation market, leaving the remaining 20 per cent for their Africans counterparts.

This has triggered concern of huge imbalance between the pair. Aviation experts, however, expressed disappointment with the situation, saying it had slowed aviation growth despite Africa’s over one billion populations.

Not a few believe that policies enunciated and implemented by African governments tend to be anti-business with serious problem hitting the profitability of the continent’s airlines.

African airlines are taking crumbs from the market they should control. But how can they control the market when they do not have good connectivity even within Africa?

They are bleeding just as they do not have the resources to compete, for instance, with the likes of Emirates, British Airways, Delta, United Airlines Lufthansa, Qatar, Air France and many other mega carriers.

There is always policy summersault in many countries, whereby policies change as new aviation ministers are appointed. Most policies are not followed through but changed midway.

Finally, there is the attitude of Africans to stand against their own, but open doors to foreign airlines, an attitude that is attributed to colonial mentality.

Conclusion

It was ironic that the main beneficiaries of Africa’s recent air traffic growth have been non-African airlines.

The panellists concluded that air transport holds the key to Africa’s economic advancement and believe that African government and African Union should take urgent steps to help remove the hurdles that hinder the growth of commercial airlines, as well as business and general aviation operations.

 

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