Okay… So, do you know the Africa region constituent about 12% of the
world’s population but only about 2.5% of the world’s passengers in the aviation industry?
This can be translated to mean; the performance of the African aviation industry is still lagging
behind those of the rest of the world. What could possibly be the reason for this gap?
However, the demand for air transport in this region has witnessed steady growth over the
past two decades, with passenger numbers and freight traffic growing massively.
This trend is expected to continue in the coming years due to a number of factors, notably robust
economic growth, political stabilities in some countries of the region, increasing urbanization,
and the emergence of more middle class. It is a well-known fact that the aviation
industry plays a vital role in the economic growth of any nation by accelerating the convergence of
goods and persons. While it is evident that the aviation industry in Africa has the potential to
fuel economic growth, several barriers exist. Some of which include poor infrastructure and
maintenance structure, financial challenges, government policies among many more challenges.
Connectivity between airports is another major challenge of the aviation industry in Africa.
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of the biggest cities in
Africa, with an estimated average population larger than London and a skyline that hovers
over the wide, snaking Congo River. If you want to visit Lagos from Kinshasa to Lagos, which is
Nigeria’s commercial capital and Africa’s largest metropolis, it’s impossible to fly
nonstop. Both cities are separated by a distance of just 1000 miles — about the same distance as
New York to Minneapolis. But there are no direct flights. Instead, you will fly East and make a
stop in Nairobi, before you can connect to Lagos. A direct flight is about two hours,
but this route adds 7 hours to the flight time, assuming your layover time in Nairobi
was 30 minutes, ticket prices start from $800, and there’s a good chance the journey will take
more than 12 hours if you have delays or longer layover time which is very common in the region.
Isn’t this time and money consuming? No one wants to spend much money and be
uncomfortable at the same time. If you want to fly from Nigeria to Morocco, you have only one choice,
you fly backward from Casablanca to Paris, where you will join the flight to Lagos.
Sadly, this is the fate of a traveler in that region. The issues of connectivity can
be attributed to bad diplomatic relations between countries of the region. Airlines trying to create
more routes between Africa nations need permission from both countries, which can be a lengthy and
expensive prospect that may or may not involve significant bribes. In 1999 about Forty-four
African nations signed an agreement promising to promote competitive markets and remove regulatory
barriers. But to date, only a few have been seen to implement the plan, known as the Yamoussoukro
Decision. Countries across the African continent have displayed nationalist tendencies to limit
others’ access to their airspace. Those instincts began a generation ago, when newly
independent nations sought to assert themselves by creating national airlines, and continue today.
Yet even as flag carriers across the continent edge toward financial ruin, additional countries,
including Uganda and Nigeria, are eyeing creating federally subsidized airlines of their own. For a
proper and blooming African aviation industry, there needs to be a good synergy and diplomatic
ties between the Africa nations like in the case of Europe where open sky, common currency,
and common regulations have impacted massively on the growth of their aviation industry and
economic growth. in Nigeria for instance, about 50 percent of the ticket fares go to the airlines,
while the rest are for sundry taxes and charges. Yet, these are the airports that do not have a
modern infrastructure in place, causing airlines to spend more for safe and secured operations
making it almost impossible for the airlines to survive. Traveling from Lagos to Bamako,
Mali, don’t have a direct flight, hence, travelers have to first go to Paris, France,
then back to Bamako. That way, the journey of four and a half hours became 24 hours to travel.
Most African countries are within 7000km from anywhere in Europe, yet the European routes,
which are the most lucrative, African airlines are banned from flying them.
Because they are not a member of the International Air Transport Association.
If you want to operate an airline in Europe or any developed country,
you need to be a member of the IATA. IATA has a set of safety standards that they apply to all
member airlines and they audit airlines at any time announced and unannounced. Failing a safety
audit will result in being decertified making international operations pretty much impossible.
Looking at the ground handling infrastructure, it gets better in some parts of Africa but I think
others need quite a massive improvement to stand amongst world standards. Some international ground
handling organizations have come in to improve the situation even though other home-based grounds
handling agents in a few countries have developed with proper structures and resources for offering
reliable aircraft ground handling services. The aircraft ground handling infrastructure across the
African continent is aged, and they do need a bust in funding. It is no news that most of the ground
handling infrastructure was established in the 70s and 80s and has not seen any significant changes
since then. In many places, infrastructure is not commensurate with the changing times of today.
Aircraft ground handling is as delicate as the safety of aircraft, equipment, and personnel
working around the aircraft. Most times there are cases of incompatibility in equipment to handle
a particular aircraft category or perform a particular handling task on the ground.
In destinations where the ground handling agency is a monopoly,
all carriers have no choice but to sign up with the single ground handling agency,
in a case where there are services clashes in destinations, carriers would have to encounter
delays due to the inadequate capacity of the ground handler. Such delays can have
reactionary effects on a carrier affecting the network integrity and aircraft utilization.
The reason for such a monopoly lies in the fact that most airlines in Africa
are either solely or partially owned by governments.
Being government entities, exposes them to negative government interference in the form
of poor decisions and the likes, resulting in these airlines being treated as personal entities.
The Nigeria federal government had a plan to setup up a maintenance facility in Nigeria
to position the country as an aircraft repair hub in West and Central Africa, but so far,
they have failed to muster the necessary political will to bring it to fulfillment.
For over two decades after the plan, Nigeria has just two centers for maintenance, repair,
and overhaul in the country at present, which are Aero Contractors and 7 Star Global Hangar Limited,
still, these two MROs lack the capacity to meet the demands of operators, neither do they have
the expertise and correct licenses to fix most planes, Air Peace, for example, have to fly
their 737s to Israel for maintenance. The harsh business environment in the country has also not
helped their efforts to expand and acquire the necessary equipment for maintenance. Most Africa
airport is being run by the government-owned Airport Authority, they decide how ground
handlers must operate and the period of operation. This would most definitely impact the long-term
investments in ground support equipment as it is only limited to the concession period granted.
In South Africa today, ground handling contracts are often granted on an open tender basis. The
Airport Authority sets the standards required and potential ground handling companies compete
for the right to operate at airports. In some Africa countries, only the Airport Authority
is permitted to provide ground handling services. In most cases, this tends to be non-competitive.
The airport infrastructure in most African countries is so obsolete and not built to
serve the growing volume of passengers or cargo. This has led to less expansion of airlines. No
airline company wants to spend more on repairs and maintenance than they generate as a result
of poor infrastructure. As we all know Airlines have fewer expansion ambitions in destinations
where the handler has limited capacity. Most carriers may desire to increase their capacity
in terms of additional flight frequencies or bigger aircraft, but sadly some Africa airports
cannot be able to handle bigger aircraft or more passenger traffic. For example,
“equipment for handling cargo freighters, remains a challenge in a number of destinations
and hence airlines desiring to fly into such destinations cannot do so.
Airlines have to make up with longer turnaround times in destinations where handling services are
limited in capacity, this is to give a longer ground time to match the handling capacity.
This results in low aircraft utilization and higher costs.”
It is with no doubt that modern infrastructure and operations require both investment and expertise,
ideally from public-private partnerships. To help solve some of these problems,
the Africa governments need to open their doors for private capital investment.
Poorly constructed runways and airfields are another major challenge most Africa airport faces.
Many airlines have experienced massive damages to their landing gears on the pavement.
These damages caused to aircraft by bad runways are severe and thereby increasing the number of
unscheduled maintenances for aircraft, which in turn increase operation costs. This situation
seems much more serious because most African airports struggle with poor or zero availability
of communication between ground control and aircraft. The situation in Nigerian airports: one
of the largest economic and biggest populations in the region is a bit better, compared to most
airports in the other parts of the region, where radio communication is much worse and almost
non-existent. As a result of this, pilots are left to fend for themselves, landing at an uncontrolled
airport is a normal thing in general aviation, but it severely limits what the airport can do.
So, what do you think Africans should do to boast their aviation industry?
Let us know in the comment section. Thanks for watching.