Aviation
After the demise of many national carriers in Africa, the continent lost its air travel market to mostly European and Middle East carriers, which now control over 70 per cent of the market. So the African Union established the Single African Air Travel Market to increase market share for African airlines and rejig the economy of the region. Chinedu Eze writes that African airlines must work together for SAATM to succeed
For the aviation industry to develop and contribute significantly to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many countries in Africa, create thousands of jobs in the continent and produce skilled manpower as pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers, schedulers, airspace managers and others, African airlines must dominate the African market.
Today, international airlines have over 70 per cent of the market share of African destinations, as many African airlines are literally limping. Many of them are infected by short-term disease, which ensures that they don’t thrive for a long time. This is because they manage the remnant of the routes left for them after the lucrative destinations have been mopped up by European and Middle East mega carriers.
For example, in Nigeria airlines like British Airways, Air France, KLM, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines leave Nigeria everyday with high load factor, operating large body double isle aircraft. Their African competitors are Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and Rwand Air. These African carriers may not have more than 30 per cent of the Nigerian market and there is no domestic carrier to compete with them, except Air Peace that is only operating two international destinations, Sharjah in United Arab Emirates and Johannesburg.
It is this reality that prompted the African Union to establish
The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) in 2018 as a way to push African airlines to begin to nibble into the huge market dominated by foreign carriers.
Liberalisation of African Airspace
The Single African Air Transport Market is a flagship project of the African Union Agenda 2063, an initiative of the African Union to create a single unified air transport market in Africa to advance the liberalisation of civil aviation in Africa and act as an impetus to the continent’s economic integration agenda.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), SAATM would ensure aviation plays a major role in connecting Africa, promoting its social, economic and political integration and boosting intra-Africa trade and tourism as a result. IATA explained that SAATM was created […]