‘Single airspace, stimulus for Africa’s airlines’ growth’
The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), an initiative of Africa Union, is the much awaited stimulus for air transport growth in Africa and ultimately socioeconomic growth of Africa, according to a former Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Richard Aisuebeogun.
The expert said this in a paper presented to New Telegraph at a function in Lagos. He said travel between African countries over the years has proven to be a major challenge for air travellers both corporate, business and even public sector officials in the continent.
He noted that most time air travellers who want to travel to an African country would need to travel to one European city before taking a connecting flight to their final destination.
“Until 2017 many of us traveling by air within Africa have probably had bad or sour experiences flying within one Africa country to another especially within sub region to another, and even flying from Africa to connecting the rest of the world. Some 10 years ago my team and I needed to attend an Airport conference in Bamako, Mali but sadly to get to Bamako we had to fly out of Africa to Paris, France to connect Air France back to Bamako in Africa”.
“ When we are done we thought on how to connect Bamako back to Lagos, of course there was no connection so all we could do was to fly back to Paris and then to Lagos. That wasn’t a pleasant passenger experience for us because ordinarily, the flight from Bamako to Lagos could have taken us less than four hours or thereabouts but it took close to 24 hours to get to our destination,” he added.
Aisuebeogun noted that previous aviation policies put in place by different regional governments such as ECOWAS, COMESA, MAGREB etc to tackle the challenges of air travel in Africa have brought little or no reprieve to air travellers challenges.
He stated that over the years, the governments in Africa have seen all of these difficulties and challenges in air transport system but possibly because of their desire and need to guard jealously what is theirs in this case the “Rights” they have refuse to loosen up and let air transport market become a regional or single market.
He further stated that over the years, African air transport market have developed various regional policies with regional initiatives, stressing that for instance the Banjul Accord, Yamoussoukro Accord, the Cape Town convention which also allows the operators of the airlines to have access to newer aircraft but also be able lease seamlessly and in the case of a default the lessor should be able to take possession of the airplane.
All of these initiatives, he reiterated were developed in the last 20 years and 25 years to guarantee seamless air transport in Africa which has all failed because of government policies in each of the over 50 countries of Africa.
Africa government, he noted need to urgently break the immigration barriers for free movement of Africans across the borders perhaps with introduction of single Travel Passport and even currency etc.
Commenting on the relationship between infrastructure and passenger growth in Africa, the former FAAN boss said airports in Africa are still largely owned by government unlike in Europe where two third of the airports are under private management by way of either concession for a period of years or a joint ownership managements as a limited liability company, where the initiative becomes privately driven to enhance operational efficiency and improve passenger experience
He observed that the growth in the aviation industry was constrained by the high industry costs which include high cost of airport operators’ fees, Jet fuel fees, and other statutory charges that could be regulated, also the inadequate infrastructure at several airports in Africa from north to south, east to west, lack of interconnectivity models between African countries airlines.
He added that governments must find ways to address the infrastructural deficit in the aviation sector in Africa, whether through its financial budgetary allocations or private equity participation for possible injection of funds
“For instance If the government builds an airport and cannot guarantee the safety and security of airline operations it will be difficult for airlines to want to take that initiative to fly into such airports in other words there is no attraction. That is exactly what is happening in some parts of Africa”.
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