Pan-African airline mooted
Richard Mantu
8 November 2004
Transport Director-General Wrenelle Stander has urged Africa's aviation industry leaders to intervene and tackle obstacles preventing the continent from achieving a competitive aviation sector.
Speaking during the second meeting of the African and Indian Ocean States Air Traffic Service providers in Kempton Park last week, Stander said the future of a pan-African airline was not that far off, but that interventions needed to be hastened.
Stander was addressing about 55 African aviation ministers, transport professionals, air traffic and navigation service providers attending the three-day meeting, which discussed ways of creating a single air travel service for Africa.
The meeting was hosted by the Air Traffic and Navigation Services Company of South Africa under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation's east and southern Africa office.
Stander said interconnectivity between African destinations remained a
challenge, noting that it was still a struggle to fly to other African cities without first going to Europe.
"As leaders in the African aviation industry, we need to grasp the nettle and accelerate our interventions to achieve a competitive, effective, regional aviation industry.
"There are many opportunities to grow our current four percent share of the aviation market", Stander said. "We need to recognise them and take advantage of them. We are still flying to European cities to access other African cities. Surely we have the embryo of an African airline right here on our continent."
Stander said there was a need for Africans to improve aviation infrastructure within their limited financial and human resources, to promote tourist, business development and trade in the continent.
The continent's vision of "seamless skies" required that Africa hasten existing partnerships and regional interventions, she said.
An example of such intervention, she said,
was the Southern African Development Community's VSAT network projects, interconnecting all the southern African states in sharing aviation and navigation data via satellite technology.
Source: BuaNews
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