African aviation and public enterprise leaders have called for greater regional integration and the liberalisation of African airspace, warning that protectionist policies and fragmented national airline strategies continue to hinder growth in the continent’s aviation sector.
The remarks were made during the Public Enterprise CEO Forum breakfast session hosted by the Namibia National Reinsurance Corporation (NamibRe) under the theme: “Leading for Excellence: Transforming Culture and Driving Performance”.
Namibia Civil Aviation Authority Executive Director Toska Sem said African governments and aviation leaders need to adopt a unified position on regional aviation integration and the implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market.
“Local protection will not allow the national air carrier to expand. It’s through liberalising our skies, coming into regional integration for us to really make the space,” Sem said.
She said African aviation stakeholders are often absent from key continental policy engagements, resulting in decisions being taken without sufficient industry participation.
“We want to take decisions, but we don’t want to be part of that circle in taking the right decisions and giving it to our principals as politicians, to really cement on those decisions,” Sem said.
According to Sem, African countries need to establish coordinated national and regional positions before entering continental negotiations.
“As we go into regional integration, we already know that the Namibian position is X, and we go as a unified front,” she said.
General Electric Southern Africa Chief Executive Officer and Author Nyimpini Mabunda, who was the special guest at the forum, said Africa had previously demonstrated stronger regional aviation cooperation than exists today.
“In East Africa, we had an organisation called East African Airways, which was an airline for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. So we had seen way ahead of the world,” Mabunda said.
He argued that while Europe and the United States have moved towards airline consolidation, Africa has become increasingly fragmented.
“If you look at the airline business today in Europe, airlines are consolidating. In America, airlines are consolidated. What are we doing in Africa? We are going back,” Mabunda said.
Mabunda said attempts to establish larger regional airline structures in Africa have struggled to gain political backing despite the limited scale of many national carriers.
“I tried to convince people that this is the right strategy, that you are too small to succeed,” he said.
He also highlighted the imbalance between Africa’s population share and its contribution to global aviation traffic.
“In Africa, we have almost 20% of the world population. From an air transport point of view, we only have 2%,” Mabunda said.
Mabunda warned that delays in implementing regional aviation integration could further weaken Africa’s competitiveness in the global aviation sector.
“If we have too many discussions, it is a crisis. The rest of the world is moving. We are still having the discussions,” he said.
