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Protectionism: Africa’s Aviation’s Short-Sighted Policy
Airlines’ protectionism hurts travellers and aviation. WOLE SHADARE writes that removing protectionist restrictions should substantially improve air travel
Growth slowed by COVID-19
Africa was on the cusp of an aviation boom before COVID-19 slowed the acceleration of the continent’s projected aviation success.
The continent was set to become one of the fastest growing aviation regions in the next 20 years with an annual expansion of nearly five per cent. These are still achievable depending on how fast the continent recovers from the effects of coronavirus.
Drawback
The protectionism of the continent’s carriers to many has left already badly hit airlines from expansion and the tendency to spoon-feed them rather than allowing for liberalisation which possibly could make them competitive.
Like the European market benefiting the European airlines, African carriers too can tap into a “bigger local market,” keeping them on a similar competitive advantage by reducing what many describe as “protectionist policies.”
Protectionism in aviation, particularly to airline business, is the practice of shielding a country’s domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports.
Aviation protectionism is simply preventing other airlines from operating into a country. This is principally due to the fact that the governments want to protect their national carriers, which doesn’t give room to competition; variety of products and it is against the open skies principles.
It rather breeds inefficiency, monopolies and outright failure to provide the consumer (travellers) with various choices to decide.
Such protectionism is mostly carried out by local government authorities through regulations, denial letters and outright verbal refusals out of malicious and egocentric tendencies sometimes due to lack of full knowledge and understanding of the impact of such decisions to the interest of the state and its people.
Promising airlines say goodbye
Protectionism has led to the death of many promising African airlines because their owners, which are governments, made it very impossible to allow the carriers to compete with big international airlines. Virgin Nigeria Airways transmuted to Nigeria Eagles Airlines to Air Nigeria for Nigeria, Tourmai Air Tchad – disappeared and has never been replaced, for Tchad.
Air Gabon to Air Gabon International (Gabon Airlines) for Gabon, Cameroon Airlines (Camair) to Cameroon Airlines Cooperation ( Camair-co) for Cameroon Air Ivoire to Air Cote D’Ivoire for Ivory Coast
Air Senegal to Air Senegal International to Senegal International to Senegal Airlines and now back to Air Senegal again, for Senegal. Ghana Airways went to Ghana International Airlines (GIA) for Ghana. DTA (Divisao Los Transportes Aereos) to TAAG (Transportes de Angola) Angola Airlines for Angola. Egypt Air to MisrAir to United Arab Airlines (UAA) and back to Egypt Air for Egypt.
Many analysts have urged governments to leave behind protectionist approaches to regulating aviation and embrace liberalisation, because when such policies are adopted, countries benefit from improved connectivity and a positive impact on trade, tourism and employment
Accelerating growth
To them, liberalisation in the form of implementing Single African Air Transport Market, (SAATM) or African Open Skies creates much more opportunities and economies of scale, stressing that when African airlines are empowered by this realisation, economic development on the continent would be accelerated, thousands more jobs would be created and the movement of people within the continent will be enhanced.
Aviation is the foundation of many established and emerging economies for example, UAE, Singapore, Rwanda, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire.
The African aviation market, however, remains underdeveloped, especially when it comes to connectivity within the continent, presenting infinite opportunities ahead.
Africa’s under-served status is partly attributable to the protectionist strategies many African States employ to protect the existing (and future) market share of their domestic airlines; some of which are state-owned. African aviation burgeoned in the early 1960s due to a wave of newly independent African states creating national airlines to assert their status as nations and serve its citizenry.
Several decades later, a combination of these established protectionist strategies and other factors (excessive bureaucracy, monopolies, high industry costs etc.) have resulted in expensive ticket costs, poor airline cooperation and poor intra-Africa connectivity culminating in the constriction of air traffic growth within the continent.
With time, they realized the full potential and benefits of the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) and its capacity to unleash the full potential of the African aviation industry, helping to enhance connectivity, facilitate trade and tourism, create employment, and ensure that the industry plays a more prominent role in the global economy and significantly contributing to the AU’s Agenda 2063
Challenges
Despite its rosy outlook, Africa’s aviation sector still faces enormous challenges. Indeed, protectionist trends have resulted in a rather lacklustre response from many member countries, concerning competition rules, ownership and control, consumer rights, taxes, and commercial viability.
By 2035, Africa is estimated to see an extra 192 million passengers a year to make up a total market of 303mn passengers, travelling to and from African destinations. While it is evident that aviation has the potential to fuel economic growth in Africa, several barriers still exist.
One major obstacle, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) points out, is the slow pace of implementing the proposed ‘open skies programme’.
in Africa, ‘Open Skies’ trajectory is at the heart of Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), a flagship project of the African Union (AU), which was launched in 2018.
It was designed to open up Africa’s skies, allowing airlines to fly between any two African cities without having to do so via their home hub airport, boosting intra-Africa trade and tourism as a result.
IATA also noted that a rise in protectionist measures could curb the forecasted growth of Africa’s air transport market by about 50 million passengers over the next two decades,
But progress in realising ‘African open skies’ has been rather tardy, analysts say. At a recent industry event in Cape Town, IATA’s regional vice-president Raphael Kuuchi noted African aviation was at risk of falling behind if countries delayed the creation of open skies while waiting for others to implement the programme first.
Nigeria’s commitment to SAATM
Although, Nigeria has signed up to SAATM, the country is yet to fully implement what is generally termed Africa’s own ‘Open Skies’ policy. Countries that have fully implemented the SAATM concrete measures include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Mozambique, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, The Gambia and Togo.
But Nigeria appears among countries 34 nations that shown serious commitment to implementing the flagship project of the African Union Agenda 2063, an initiative of the African Union to create a single unified air transport market in Africa to advance the liberalisation of civil aviation in Africa and act as an impetus to the continent’s economic integration agenda.
Countries that have signed up to SAATM include Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea (Bissau), Guinée
Others are Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sénégal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Chad, Togo, Zimbabwe.
Obviously, SAATM’s key objective is to create a single unified air transport market for African airlines, which can boost local economies through increased intra-African trading. However, these countries represent more than 80 per cent of the existing aviation market in Africa.
Experts’ views
Experts in the aviation sector charged government officials within the aviation sector to seriously consider this in order to encourage economic growth in Africa.
Nowhere in the world are these obstacles greater than the African skies. In Africa, only 20 per cent of those crossing national borders arrive by air, with the percentage much higher in advanced and developed countries.
Over the next decade, most studies and estimates suggest that the travel industry will double its already sizable contribution to Africa’s economic growth especially as Africa continuous to sign trade partnership deals with China and Europe.
Nothing to protect
For African carriers, the question is, what are we really protecting? The continent prevent and refuse market access to partner regional African carriers into Africa’s markets that will provide complimentary services and alternatives to the travel population, with the message of protecting local national carriers that cannot fully satisfy demand. If all governments within Africa prevent other regional carriers from not having access into their market, will each carrier stay within its sovereign territory and function within?
Last line
Protectionism is a short-sighted policy, which only serves to keep the African market fragmented, inefficient, and expensive, thereby reducing opportunities for African airlines.
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