Africa Focus: African countries striving to open up skies: AU official

In an endeavor to recognize its potential and boost its aviation industry, African countries are striving to liberalise its skies, an AU official said on Friday.

At least 12 African countries have already signed up agreements to open up their skies by 2017, said Dr. Elham Mahmood Ibrahim, African Union (AU) Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy.

The adoption of the policy to open up skies would improve safety, cut fuel taxes and allow for greater connectivity between African countries, Ibrahim told reporters on the sidelines of the 25th AU Summit in Johannesburg.

Since the signing of the Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) which was adopted by the African Union in 1989 and which committed African governments to an open sky policy, more African countries are keen to be on board, Ibrahim said.

A very few African countries have adopted the open sky policies, and the negative results were evidenced by Africa's lack of economic growth in its share of international and, even, intra- continental commercial air traffic, said Ibrahim.

The reason why only a few African countries have adopted the open sky policy is that some of the countries wanted to protect their skies, according to Ibrahim.

But she noted that the "adaptation and implementation has shown that greater transport connectivity was an economic enabler".

Ibrahim cited a recent World Bank study as saying that if implemented, the single African airline market among the 12 countries would generate about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars annually and create more than 155,000 jobs.

Africa presented great growth opportunities and the countries are set to grow if other AU member states come on board, Ibrahim said.

She challenged Africa countries to take a leaf out of their European and American counterparts to adopt and implement the YD, and experience the growth in their economy.

When asked why it takes so long for African countries to open up skies, Ibrahim said lack of enabling environments and legislations dogged the implementation of the programme and "aviation was regarded as luxury".

"Greater connectivity in a continent where many countries are saddled with poor road and rail infrastructure, air transport was regarded as not importantly viewed," she added.

In 2014, African airlines signed the Abuja Declaration, which among other things was set to improve the safety performance of Africa's carriers. The ambitious programme aims to have all African airlines complete the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) by the end of 2015.

The World Bank report also states that while Africa is home to 12 percent of the world's population, it still accounts for less than one percent of the global air service market.

The report, entitled Open Skies for Africa -- Implementing the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD), notes that the punitive measures of air lines services among many African countries was one of the contributing factors to Africa's problems in becoming a competitive and effective player in the global air traffic.

The countries that signed the agreements to open up their skies by 2017 are Benin, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo Brazzaville, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa and Malawi. Endi