IATA Seeks Infrastructure, Safety For Africa’s Air Transport

The International Air
Transport Association (IATA). has called on the public and private stakeholders in various countries to work together to address critical priorities to enable aviation to do more to drive economic growth in Africa.
But for this to occur, however, Africa must address major challenges in safety, infrastructure and liberalisation.
Speaking at Aviation Day Africa, conference organised by IATA in Lagos recently, the Director General of IATA, Tony Tyler, said “Africa is poised for rapid development and great changes.
Half of the top 20 fastest growing economies over the next five years are expected to be on this continent. Aviation’s part in driving growth and development will become even more prominent.
Tyler said aviation supports 6.7 million jobs and some $68 billion of economic activity in Africa, noting that those numbers are impressive “but I am convinced aviation has an even bigger role to play on providing the connectivity that drives economic growth and development”.
He explained that safety is top priority of IATA, hinting that Africa’s performance was well below what they are achieving globally.
According to him, in 2002, African Airlines had one accident (with a Western-built aircraft) for every 270,000 flights. Globally, the industry average was one accident for every five million flights. However, no IATA member experienced a Western built jet hull loss accident last year and that includes the 25 member airlines based in Africa.
“Likewise, one of the 384 airlines on the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registry had a hull loss with a Western-built jet – also including those carriers based in Africa.
“It is clear that IOSA is making a difference – not just in Africa, but in safety globally”, Tyler said.
The Abuja Declaration, which he noted was endorsed by the African Union Summit this year, sets out a comprehensive approach to reaching world-class safety levels by 2015, adding that the completion of IOSA by all African carriers is a condition of the Declaration.
He listed some of the continent’s challenges to include physical, saying infrastructure in many parts of Africa needs to improve. He added that several infrastructure projects are on-going in the region – upgrades at Lagos Airport, performance – Based Navigation investments for Nigerian air traffic management and ambitious airport infrastructure redevelopment in Ghana.
Nonetheless, he stated that there are some infrastructure challenges including the reliability of fuel supply in Lagos and other areas.