What happened to the Single African Sky?

Passengers waiting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight at Kigali airport.

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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday urged African governments to speed up efforts to liberalise their airspace to lower the cost of travel on the continent.

Specifically, it called on governments to implement the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement. Launched in January 2018 the initiative – dubbed the ‘Single African Sky’ – aims to harmonise and open up the continent’s notoriously fragmented airspace.

Since then it has all but vanished from news headlines and talk of integration efforts on the continent.

For good reason.

While 28 countries have signed up, only eight have taken the steps needed to fully liberalise their airspace according to IATA.

Rather than opening up, the organisation warns, governments are maintaining protectionist policies amid a trend of countries looking to launch or resurrect inefficient national carriers.

This is adding to difficulties faced by Africa’s already struggling airlines – expected to post a $300 million loss this year.

It’s also needlessly holding back a growing aviation sector, which contributes an estimated $55.8 billion to the continent’s GDP, supporting 6.2 million jobs. Demand for air transport is expected to double in the next 20 years, with international tourism demand booming.

We can only guess how much better these numbers would look with meaningful liberalisation. That, or governments can get serious about implementing the Single African Sky.

This report reflects the views of the author alone, not those of How we made it in Africa.


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