The untapped African air transport market presents a great opportunity for African airlines, but challenges remain including the capitalization of private African carriers, the limited liberalisation of airspace, safety and security concerns, and the lack of protection of consumers.

This was the word from Tanzania-based Alloys Mutabingwa, Deputy Secretary General of the East African Community (EAC), who addressed the Aviation Africa Outlook 2010 conference in Cape Town this week. He said April 2010 had shown the highest year-on-year growth in intra-African air traffic. Passenger numbers increased by 18%, flights to Africa increased by 19%; the number of flights on the continent rose by 9%, and the average growth of seat capacity for the month was 10%. He said traffic growth grew by 5.7% in Africa over the past decade (3% passengers and 25% freight). However, foreign carriers had 75% of the market share and African carriers only 25%. In 2008, intercontinental traffic made up 49% of all air traffic in Africa, intra-African traffic 12% and domestic traffic 39%. Addressing the challenges, particularly in East Africa, he suggested private carriers strengthen their capital base through mergers or public/private partnerships. He said the most common approach was for governments to inject share capital into an airline and to later sell it to the private sector after the business had matured. Mutabingwa also called on African states to speed up the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) – in terms of which African states have agreed to Open Skies within Africa for African carriers – through their regional economic communities, such as EAC and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). He said they particularly should work on eliminating restrictions on capacity and frequencies between city pairs. This would ease travel within Africa, where regional connections are still often unavailable, necessitating cumbersome connections via points outside of the continent. “We also must put in place the necessary regulations, institutions and monitoring mechanism to ensure fair play in a liberalised environment,” he said. Fear of competition has been one of the main contributing factors why YD has remained largely unimplemented in many parts of Africa. However, South African Airways, Egypt Air, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines are enjoying simplified bilateral air service agreements due to the inclusion of some elements of YD. Mutabingwa said air travel was the fastest growing means of transport in East Africa (6% growth in capacity and frequency in 2009), driven by business travel and humantitarian activities. EAC partner states were in an advanced stage of implementing YD. They had also established a regional organization to coordinate efforts in addressing safety and security oversight in the region.