Fadugba: Africa needs reliable, affordable air transport industry

The Chief Executive Officer of African Aviation Services Limited, Nick Fadugba said Africa needs a safe, reliable, efficient, affordable and profitable air transport industry that facilitates travel, trade and tourism across the continent, and between Africa and the world.

He however stated that despite the myriad of challenges confronting the continent’s aviation industry, much has been achieved, hinting that aviation safety, security, training, regulatory oversight, infrastructure, liberalisation, modernisation and funding all need to be improved significantly.

He stated this during the African Airline Technical Directors Meeting and AATO Council Meeting at the just concluded Aviation MRO Africa with theme, “Strengthening Africa’s MRO and Training Capacity for the Future,” held at the weekend in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

At the main conference, additional stumbling blocks were discussed, such as the need for more cooperation between African airlines, the supply chain logjam, the lack of sufficient trained aviation personnel, the need for fairer pricing by international suppliers, and increased communication between industry stakeholders.

He reiterated that if properly harnessed, a big if, aviation could become one of the keys to Africa’s future prosperity.

“To succeed we need, inter alia, a clear vision, good leadership, discipline, hard work, patriotism, good governance and a genuine spirit of co-operation in Africa”, he added.

Meanwhile, aviation stakeholders in Africa have called for partnerships and the elimination of diplomatic boundaries to enhance connectivity among African countries to boost trade and create more jobs for teeming youths on the continent.

The stakeholders who met with other aviation experts, suppliers, aircraft manufacturers and others from different parts of the world, yesterday, stated that Africa cannot develop airlines that would dominate the region and beyond unless existing airlines and governments decide to work together, encourage liberalisation to increase the market share of African carriers and boost air travel in the region.

The experts met at the ongoing MRO 2024 Conference, organised by the African Aviation Services that took place in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa from April 23 to 25, 2024.

The conference is on Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) of aircraft; it is an annual conference held in Africa to draw attention to aircraft maintenance, and safety and bring aviation professionals together to brainstorm on air travel development in Africa.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Ato Mesfin Tasew, said. However, global aviation has overcome the challenge posed by COVID-19, and many airlines have restored their operation to 2019 levels. However, some effects of the COVID-19 lockdown are still affecting the industry, especially in Africa.

Some of the challenges occasioned by COVID-19 included the high cost and paucity of aircraft spares, the high cost of maintenance and regretted that Africa is the most affected by these unfavourable conditions, adding that a few airlines in Africa are making profits.

Tasew said African airlines are bogged down by internal and external challenges, identifying the internal problem as a lack of strategic planning and external challenges as a hostile operating environment, and absence of MRO facilities, noting that the absence of such maintenance facilities has created a vacuum in the West and Central sub-regions of the continent.

In his address, the Secretary General of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), Mr Abdelrahmane Berthe, said in 2023, AFRAA estimated that the passengers carried by African airlines reached 85 million, representing 89 per cent of the pre-Covid 2019 level, saying since the last quarter of 2023, the traffic has reached the levels of 2019.

In 2024, AFRAA estimates the traffic to fully recover at 98 million passengers above the 2019 level.

Abdelrahmane said the global intra-African connectivity has reached the pre-COVID level since December 2022.

However, the number of existing connections is far lower than the real potential, remarking that as the aviation community, “we must continue the ongoing joint efforts to transform and foster a sustainable and resilient air transport system in Africa.”

“The air transport sector’s priority in Africa is to address sustainability, stop marginalization, gain competitiveness, conquer the intra-Africa market, and grow the global market share. At AFRAA, we have four priorities for 2024.

“The priority is safety. Safety is critical for our business. AFRAA in partnership with Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is staging the Inaugural Safety and Operations Summit on May 15th 2024 here in Addis Ababa, back-to-back with the Stakeholders Convention hosted by Ethiopian Airlines.

“The second priority is intra-African connectivity: African airlines should cooperate more on commercial agreements. New route development in collaboration with other aviation stakeholders is critical to facilitate the movement of people across the continent. The third priority is sustainability,” he said.

Wole Shadare