AFRAA suppliers' conference begins in Nairobi
The African Airlines Association (AFRAA) kicked off its second conference on aviation suppliers' stakeholders in Nairobi today.
The conference, which is being attended by 246 delegates from 46 countries, will deliberate on supplier chain management issues in Africa and how to improve service delivery.
AFRAA said the African air transport market is among the fastest growing in world and this this growth needs to be supported by industry suppliers of complementary products, solutions and services.
The aviation body seeks to facilitate the exploitation of the growth opportunities by forging win-win business relationships.
The biggest image challenge confronting African aviation is safety, says Dr Elijah Chingosho, AFRAA secretary general. Though improvements have been recorded in
recent years, Africa still has the highest number of accidents of 7.5 per million departures compared to the industry average of 2.2 per million departures. As part of measures to improve safety and improve quality of service delivery as well as reduce the continent’s environmental footprint, Africa theContinent’s fleet will receive a boost of 800 new aircraft in the next 20 years.
The deputy regional director of ICAO for Eastern and Southern Africa, Boitshoko
Sekwati, outlined the role ICAO and other regional organisations including AFRAA are playing to improve safety on the continent. He noted that the efforts are yielding dividends as safety is improving and states are more committed to rectifying identified deficiencies.
The IATA regional manager for East Africa, Hassim Pondor, noted that safety performance of African airlines on the IOSA registry, including African members, aligns with the global average.
With the Abuja Declaration, African governments have committed to achieve world class safety levels by the end of 2015.
Pondor said: “ IATA is engaging African airlines directly to meet IOSA standards. In this regard, IATA avail sponsorship to 10 AFI carriers to assist them attain IOSA.”
The secretary general of AFCAC, Sosina
Lyabo, outlined the challenges confronting African aviation to include safety, security and the non-implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD). She added that, “African air transport industry is still relatively underdeveloped and characterised by weak and fragmented airlines that are faced with the challenges of under-capitalization, difficulty in attracting finance, narrow route networks, ageing aircraft, growing insufficiency of qualified aviation personnel due to
consistent loss of skilled.”
She added: “Collectively, these challenges have resulted in African airlines being weak and unable to compete with the global mega carriers.”
The representative of the director general of the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Joseph
Kiptoo, lauded AFRAA staging of the conference which has gathered diverse suppliers and service providers to dialogue and forge partnership. He said the KCAA recently had its mandate expanded to enable it broaden its capacity to better service airlines and provide oversight to operators.
On assistance to improving safety Kiptoo said: “The Kenyan government recently domesticated the Cape Town Convention and Protocol which has enable operators to acquire new aircraft at reduced costs. He urged other African states that have not yet acceded to the Cape Town legislative instrument to do so to facilitate the modernisation of aircraft in Africa.