The African airline industry is changing rapidly with governments ceasing to protect their national carriers against competition as new airlines emerge and some traditional carriers disappear.
The transition was reflected at the annual general assembly of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) held in Tripoli in December. Members elected Zoufir El Aounir, the head of one of the newer airlines, Air Senegal International, as their president rather than the chief of long-established Nigerian Airways.
The Senegalese company has rapidly expanded and has reopened intra-African and intercontinental routes abandoned since Air Afrique went out of business. Air Senegal International is partly owned by Royal Air Maroc. Other major airlines are likewise involved with the new carriers. Kenya Airways is helping Tanzania's Precision Air Services. Staff at Libya's new airline Afriqiyah (All African Airways) came from Libyan Arab Airlines. Tunisair is providing assistance to Mali Trans African. South African Airways is helping Air Tanzania and has offered to set up a new company in Nigeria to replace the bankrupt Nigerian Airways.
Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo are among the nations that now have airlines with intra-African and sometimes intercontinental route networks in place or being planned. Three little known airlines recently joined IATA, an indication of their international aspirations: Albarka (Nigeria), East African Safari Air (Kenya) and Rwanda Air Express.
While welcoming the emergence of many new airlines as a result of the increasingly liberalised African regulatory environment, AFRAA secretary general Christian Folly-Kossi warned that the new privately owned carriers may be too small to survive and compete on their own. "They need instead to enter into alliances with existing bigger African airlines instead of competing on the same thin routes," he said. Financial experts share his opinion. Nevertheless, most of the new carriers seem to have found ways of leasing modern aircraft.
New personalities such as Air Senegal International's head Zoufir El Aounir are emerging as leaders of the African airline industry. Their arrival may signal that the days of constant management changes in African airlines may finally be coming to an end. In the last four years Ghana Airways and Libyan Arab Airlines have each had five different chief executives, while five other carriers each had four during the same period.
One of the few major African airlines with a stable management is Ethiopian Airlines but its chief executive, the soon-to-retire Ato Bisrat Nigatu, like most of the members of the AFRAA executive committee, did not attend the Tripoli meeting. On the other hand, the new airlines attending mostly had their chief executives on hand.
Meeting for the first time in Libya, AFRAA delegates were given a welcome address by the country's leader Muammar Ghadaffi who called for more co-operation among African airlines and the location of training facilities on the continent. Because Libyan airlines are still suffering from US sanctions, the AFRAA meeting passed a resolution calling for their immediate lifting .
One of the surprises of the Tripoli meeting was the revelation by IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani that "2,500 managers, professionals and other staff of African airlines require urgent training". This finding resulted from an IATA/AFRAA survey. The situation was urgent, he said, citing a number of critical issues: old leadership structures, a lack of commercial skills and a shortage of money.
He said that IATA and the International Airline Training Fund are providing bridge funding to initiate a training programme, with former Air Mauritius head Vinod Chidambaram as project co-ordinator.
ANTHONY VANDYK TRIPOLI
Source: Airline Business
