Routes 2015: African headwinds

At World Routes in Durban, Air Zimbabwe’s acting CEO Edmund Makona summed up the African challenge perfectly: “You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to reach your destination.”

Doing business in Africa is tough. The market is bound hand and foot with red tape. Safety and infrastructure are not where they should be. Non-African carriers dominate the continent’s air links. Airlines must work together to succeed. This summarizes at least 10 years of African airline conferences – and quite a bit of the discussion at World Routes too.

There is optimism that the direction of the wind is about to change. After decades of inaction, 11 countries have committed to intra-African air transport liberalization by 2017. Granted, these are 11 of 44 states which already committed to the same thing, twice, over 20 years ago. In the words of one of the Routes panelists, Africa is good at putting plans together; it’s terrible at implementing them.

So why should things change now? That question is best answered by African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) secretary general Iyabo Sosina, who is leading the intra-African liberalization process.

“Airlines were reluctant [for their states] to implement [liberalization] because they thought they were going to die, so they called on the state to protect them. The states willingly did that, but things have got to a stage where they have been protected and they are still dying,” Sosina said at the AFRAA AGA in Algiers last November.

It’s an old quote, but I like it. A handful of weak airlines cannot be protected at the expense of an entire continent’s connectivity, trade and economic growth.

But equally, the continent’s airlines cannot afford to sit back and wait for liberalization to happen. As we heard at World Routes, the time for thinking and meeting is over.

African carriers need to recognize that success is not a fleet of Airbus A380s, flying to Europe, Asia and the USA in their national livery. Success is flying a three-hour intra-African route in three hours, rather than 24 hours via Europe. Success is smaller aircraft, flown at higher frequencies, with a reasonable load factor, created by an equally reasonable ticket price.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

African carriers need to be realists, or the colors on those sails will not be theirs.