Nigeria, SA, Egypt, others target 2017 single African air transport market

Secretary General, African Airlines Association (AFRAA), Dr. Elijah Chingosho, has disclosed that Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe are on the verge of meeting the target of having a single air transport market by the end of January 2017.
Chingosho said the possibility was very high considering the fact that these nations were ready to implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration that calls for African countries to open their skies to more flights from African airlines.
In a statement, Tuesday, theAFRAA chief noted that Africa was set to liberalise its aviation zone by the end of January 2017 as it had the potential to double the sector’s size in five years.
He stated that eight countries, which collectively control 85 per cent of Africa’s air traffic, planned to open their skies to other African airlines.
“Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe are ready to meet the target. We are likely to achieve the target of having a single African air transport market by the end of January 2017”. He noted that the main challenge to opening African skies was from nations wishing to protect inefficient national carriers from foreign competition.
“Some of these inefficient airlines lobby their governments not to allow competition from other African airlines. “However, we try to convince these governments that competition is good for everybody because it will eventually improve the innovativeness of the sector.”
According to Chingosho, the African aviation sector can double in the next five years if the industry is fully liberalised, meaning all bilateral air service agreements should be abolished. He said the continent needed strong airlines to compete with global carriers and small, weak airlines, adding that those that cannot compete should be discouraged.
AFRAA said that the combined fleet of African airlines only numbers 760 aircraft, lamenting that this is just half the size of one single airline like American Airlines (AA) with 1,494 aircraft. He noted that African airlines accounted for less than three per cent of global aviation revenue.
AFRAA’s Director, Commercial, Corporate and Industry Affairs, Raphael Kuuchi, said that with fast growing economies and swelling middle class estimated to reach 300 million by 2030, and less than 15 per cent of the continent’s one billion population ever travelled by air, Africa has enormous potential for air transport growth.
To unleash this potential, Kuuchi noted that the market must be liberalised, as is the case in other regions of the world.
“The liberalisation of the internal markets in China and India resulted in phenomenal traffic growth and the emergence of big and successful airlines. By dominating their domestic markets, carriers in these regions have a traffic base with which they are able to compete with foreign airlines on intercontinental routes.
“In Africa, over 80 per cent of all intercontinental traffic is carried by foreign airlines. In addition, some foreign airlines are given 5th freedom traffic rights to compete with African airlines on intra-African routes,” he noted.
The airline chief said the days of waiting for the government subventions were long gone, hinting that airlines were aware of this.
He, however, stated that the continent’s aviation experts expect governments to create a level playing field where fair competition thrives.