Ethiopian Airlines has come a long way during its first 70 years – and it has plenty of groundbreaking plans for the decades to come. Gary Noakes reports for Routes News.
The anticipated arrival of the first AirAsia X long-haul, low-cost flights at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport on the island of Mauritius in October this year is just one good example of the leisure potential that Africa holds for future air service connectivity.
As ISIS activity grows across North Africa, it has led to a devastating impact upon North Africa’s tourism - the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) shows that visits to North Africa fell by 8% in 2015. The decline has occurred as the security threat level has grown in the region, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia where high profile terror attacks have brought safety to the forefront of everyone’s minds.
A new – and free – security review for airports provided by the Airports Council International looks set to help drive best practice across long-suffering destinations in Africa.
Aviation is a catalyst for growth, a vital conduit for world trade, and a major global employer. Nearly 63 million jobs and $2.4 trillion in global GDP are supported by aviation. But with these benefits comes an impact on the environment. Whether that is climate change, aircraft noise, local air quality, environment advocacy actions and most recently illegal wildlife trafficking.
The Tenerife Government hopes its favourable tax regime will attract additional airlines to open new bases on the island in the coming years. The island’s Tenerife South Airport has recently welcomed new operational bases from LCCs Norwegian, Iberia Express and Vueling and revealed talks will shortly take place with two other operators.
A partnership between British security firm Restrata and Egyptian security company Falcon Group International has already won the approval of both the British Ambassador to Egypt and the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen travel links between the two countries.
Despite a long wait and numerous promises, Dr Elijah Chingosho, secretary general of African airline group, the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), revealed during Routes Africa that he personally believed that the latest timescale of an at least partial liberalisation of African skies remained an unrealistic target.
Cape Town International Airport in South Africa has been rewarded for its network development initiatives after being announced as the overall winner of the Routes Africa edition of the Routes 2016 Marketing Awards which were formally announced last night during the Networking Evening event which took place at Finca Punta del Lomo, a rural complex built on a banana plantation in Tenerife, Canary Islands.
The Canary Islands are one of the largest exporters to Africa, a market worth €227.42 million in 2014. The island is only a 45 minute flight away from Morocco, compared to a two and a half hour flight time to reach Madrid. At present, routes to Marrakech, Agadir, and Dakar are being served from Tenerife twice a week, and a route to Casablanca three times weekly.
The number of international passengers making indirect flights to African destinations is as big as the international markets of five of the world’s key airports. Speaking at the Routes Africa 2016 event in Tenerife, Canary Islands on the importance of data in winning new routes, ASM senior vice president Tony Griffin said about 90 million international passengers flew to the continent in 2015.
Cost, quality and skills are three of the key factors ensuring the effective use of data for business success. Presenting a Routes Talk entitled 'The Lack of Data in Africa' at Routes Africa in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Sabre senior management consultant Gad Wavomba said while good data does cost money, the return on investment makes it worthwhile.
Since Zimbabwe hosted delegates at Routes Africa in June 2014, what was then a building site at Victoria Falls International Airport has now turned into a brand new modern facility ready to host global visitors.
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.
At present, Bilbao Airport serves more than four million people a year. The airport directly provides services within Europe, but after hosting Routes Europe in 2018, long-haul services could be on the horizon for the Basque Country.
The airport, famous for its sleek terminal building designed by Spanish neofuturistic architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter, Santiago Calatrava Valls, reported a second successive year of year-on-year traffic growth in 2015 and fifth rise in the past six years.
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.
An open skies arrangement is unlikely to be introduced in Africa until governments on the continent see their airlines as businesses, not personal play things. Speaking at the Routes Africa Strategy Summit in Tenerife, Raphael Kuuchi, the vice president of Africa at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said the failure of countries to accept the need for liberalisation was endemic across the continent.
African airlines are too small to survive alone and need to work together more if they are to continue doing business in an increasingly global world. In fact it was suggested that unless a small airline could evolve, grow, and develop partnerships with others, it would simply fail.
The Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute, named after S. A. Chaplygin (SibNIA), believes its TVS-2MS turboprop conversion of the classic Antonov An-2 piston airliner could prolong the life of the venerable aircraft into a ninth decade, with Africa a strong potential market for the modernised aeroplane.
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.
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.
