West Africa, particularly Nigeria, are emerging as business aviation growth markets as the region continues to develop industries based on its natural resources, according to the Middle East's only African-owned aviation company.
Yesterday’s Routes Africa Strategy Summit highlighted some of the most interesting aspects of aviation in Africa today. More than a dozen high-profile speakers debated some of the key topics impacting the aviation business across the region.
Binter made its debut in Cape Verde in 2012 and its planned expansion will mark its first intra-African operation. The growth is being facilitated by the arrival of new regional turboprop equipment in its Canary Islands based fleet freeing up older aircraft to be redeployed into Cape Verde.
The launch of a new national carrier for Uganda has been on the table for the last few years and was first reported by Routesonline back in July 2013 after a senior Ugandan Government Minister revealed at that year’s Routes Africa forum in Kampala that discussions have once again taken place over the resurrection of Uganda Airlines as an at least partially state-controlled national carrier to boost trade and tourism into the East African country.
Nile Air will become the first private Egyptian carrier to introduce domestic services within the country when it launches the new three times weekly Cairo – Hurghada and four times weekly Cairo – Sharm el Sheikh starting from July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2016, respectively but it is still expanding its international reach, especially into Saudi Arabia, which remains its main focus market.
In a presentation during the Routes Africa Strategy Summit in Tenerife, Canary Islands on the subject of how African carriers can capitalise on travel growth, Gad Wavomba, senior consultant, Sabre Airline Solutions warned that many airlines are failing to benchmark against industry standards and as a result are failing to fulfil their potential.
The second panel session of the Routes Africa Strategy Summit saw esteemed professionals from the aviation industry discuss the impact of tourism within Africa. The panel was moderated by Edward Robertson, editor of Routes News, and featured Richard Bodin, chief commercial officer of fastjet; Fernando Estrada, chief strategy officer of Vueling; Stephanie Wear, director of economic and air service development Tenerife Tourism Corporation and Yolanta Strikista, director of Strikista Consulting.
Emirates has announced that its service between Dubai and Dakar, currently operated by an Airbus A340-300, will be replaced with a Boeing 777-300ER from September 2, 2016.
According to 2011 estimates, about 12.5 percent of the African population has internet access. While Africa accounts for 15.0 percent of the population, only 6.2 percent of the world’s internet subscribers are African. But, as the internet becomes more available, Africans are using it in their millions.
The ten youngest populations in the world all reside on the African continent – the median age in Niger is just 14.8 years. An increasing working-age population could be detrimental to Africa’s continuing growth, and if dealt with correctly, opportunities could be endless for the Africa of tomorrow.
Thirteen Nigerian Aerodrome safety inspectors have been trained by the Singapore Civil Aviation Academy, the first time a programme of its type has been held in Nigeria.
