A VIAT ION
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PICTURED: Passengers wait at Jomo Kenyatta International airport in Nairobi
hen Alex Dichter, now a senior partner at McKinsey & Company in London, tried to go to war-torn Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s to do voluntary work, the first problem was getting in. Tere was no functioning government
and no official flights. Te only solution at Kigali airport in neighbouring Rwanda was for Dichter to go over to the cargo area with a couple of bottles of vodka in his rucksack and use it to “hitch a ride” with one of the mercenary Russian and Ukrainian aircraſt that were ferrying arms into the DRC. Tere are usually more conventional ways to get a flight
within Africa. But it can mean flying out to Europe and then back into Africa again. Why, for example, is it impossible to fly direct between Kinshasa in the DRC and Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos? Tese are already huge cities and will become megalopolises in the future. African aviation policymakers understand the potential of
greater competition and increased direct services, but have multiple and conflicting objectives and constraints, Dichter notes. Tey may want to increase aviation services, and also need to protect domestic aviation jobs, “but they can’t have both. Te desire to protect is politically powerful.” Many countries suspect that if exposed to real competition, their own national carrier might struggle to survive. To state the obvious, Africa is a growth market for aviation.
Te International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasts 5.9 per cent year-on-year growth in African aviation over the next 20 years, with passenger numbers expected to increase from 100 million to more than 300 million by 2026. Tat suggests the possibility of Africa becoming a less fragmented continent with greater air connectivity, opening up economic benefits across the board. An IATA survey in 2014 suggested that if 12 key African
countries opened their markets and increased connectivity, an extra 155,000 jobs and US$1.3 billion in annual GDP would be created in those countries. Much remains to be done if that potential is to be realised.
“Too many African governments view aviation as a luxury rather than a necessity,” argues Katherine Kaczynska, IATA’s corporate communications manager for the Middle East and Africa. “Tat perception needs to change. Te value of aviation for governments is not in the tax receipts that can be squeezed from it. It is in the economic growth and job creation that aviation supports.” Kaczynska points out that the global average profit per
passenger is US$7.80. But airlines in Africa on average lose US$1.55 for every passenger carried. Tere are many reasons for the disparity. Jet fuel costs in Africa are 35 per cent higher
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