While Africa’s civil aviation sector continues to grow it faces mounting challenges to build a sustainable regional market. Keith Nuthall, Paul Cochrane and Wachira Kigotho investigate the issues and discuss the hope that ‘where airlines fly, wealth will follow’.
Flying out of Africa is increasing annually, but internal air travel within the world’s second largest continent remains hampered by red tape and economics. But local carriers are hoping their domestic dreams will soon become a reality. The continent is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in many new intra-African routes and related airport and air traffic control (ATC) infrastructure.
It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries in the region. Of course, these challenges have been set against the COVID-19 crisis that grounded airlines worldwide.
Once the continent’s transport sector throws off the malaise caused by the pandemic, the intra-African civil aviation market will be a key growth target – it is far smaller than it should be for 54 states wi…