The importance of Nigeria to the development and growth of air transport in Africa has again taken the center stage in far away Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the Secretary General of African Airlines Association (AFRAA), Abderahmane Berthe calling on Nigeria to consider pushing for a formidable airline that will cover the African continent like Ethiopian airline.
Speaking at the ongoing MRO Africa 2024 conference and exhibition organized by the British/Nigerian born Nick Fadugba in Addis Ababa, the AFRAA Scribe while describing Airline activities in the Eastern and Southern regions of Africa to be very strong, however lamented the weakness of the airline business in Western axis of Africa where Nigeria belongs.
Though he described Nigeria as a big market with its strong international and domestic market, he however expressed the hope to see Nigeria playing the role of Ethiopian airline in the West African region.
His words: ” Nigeria is a big market. We have some member airlines from Nigeria. So today if you look at the continent, in aviation, we have much activities in East, Southern regions, and Western Central is weak. Only Nigeria has a strong domestic market and intercontinental market. I hope to see Nigeria having an airline which will also cover the continent like the Ethiopian Airlines is doing today. Because you see the Ethiopian Airlines operates globally, operating out of Africa and within Africa. So Nigeria has the potential and I really hope that from the Western Central region, we can have a hub in Nigeria to connect Africa as well, this will be important”.
Speaking on how the lack of cooperation amongst African governments has frustrated the implementation of most of the policies that would have engender free movement and connectivity within the continent, like the Yamoussoukro policy, the IFATCA and the SAATM, Berthe revealed the imminent probability where any African carrier who is denied the traffic right to a fellow African country can seek for such right in the court of law.
“We have today 38 seats signed to a Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) last month. But all of them (African governments) have not complied, maybe 10, some will sign, they will continue to deny even third or fourth traffic rights. I am just not talking about fifth freedom traffic rights. This is a concern for us. So far we have been trying to do advocacy, but even advocacy is not working very well.
“Today there are two things we are working on. It will put in place what we call the dispute settlement mechanism at the AU level which will authorize an airline or a state to go in dispute against a state who is denying a traffic right. If you sign and you are denying, you can be taken to the court and also there will be some sanctions around it. In parallel to that, it is also important to reach the high-level of political decision leaders, because so far we are talking to ministers, is not working very well. So now we feel as stakeholders, we need to package something and go higher at the level of prime minister or even head of state. If the instructions come from the head of state, we hope that state will really implement it.”
On the future of Africa which the AFRAA Secretary General described as bright, he however called for an enabling environment that will develop the traffic to pave the way for affordability of fares on the continent which he said is still very low.
“So, we need to create an environment to develop the traffic, to affordability of fares. That is why the single African air transport market is important, also the African continental free trade area. Because if there is no activity between countries, it is difficult for an airline to open a route. And also, we are seeing still some visa restrictions between African countries. This also should be solved. And I think African airlines also are not cooperating much.
“We have commercial agreement. This is something which needs to be changed. Nigeria is a big market. We have some member airlines from Nigeria. So today if you look at the continent, in aviation, we have much activities in east, southern regions, and western central is weak. Only Nigeria has a strong domestic market and intercontinental market. I hope to see Nigeria having an airline which will also cover the continent like the Ethiopian Airlines is doing today. Because you see the Ethiopian Airlines global operating out of Africa and within Africa. So Nigeria has the potential and I really hope that from the Western Central region, we can have a hub in Nigeria to connect Africa as well, this will be important. Regarding MROs, activity, MRO is very important
“As I said during my speech, there are two critical elements regarding the cost of operation, the fuel and maintenance. We know that in Africa, fuel costs is very, very high. Now we are seeing also maintenance becoming high cost because of the supply chain and the logistics, restrictions and also customs sometimes in some countries. So these challenges are making difficult to develop MRO activities in the continent. However, if we see that we expect the traffic to double by 2042, it means that we have more aircraft in operation, more aircraft means more maintenance, so we really need also to have MRO.”
