The African open skies agreement earlier this year was widely welcomed by the international aviation industry - but is change happening fast enough? Policy agreements and infrastructure improvements need to be fast and far-reaching, explains Chapman Freeborn cargo charter manager, Gerhard Coetzee.
The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement announced earlier this year is aiming to boost Africa’s ailing aviation industry, but progress still seems painfully slow in a cargo market much in need of a shake-up.
It’s been two decades of glacial change since the Yamoussoukro Decision in 1999, and while the open skies announcement earlier this year was well received, we’ve already seen too much dragging of heels and protecting of national interests.
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Countries that have signed up to the SAATM
The challenge for Africa is that the global aviation industry is a fast-moving business and time waits for no man. As a charter specialist with a worldwide presence we see first-hand how the industry rapidly evolves – with opportunities appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye.
In the last couple of years, for example, we’ve seen the dramatic rise of e-commerce in cargo aviation – with customers demanding faster turnarounds and quicker delivery times than ever before.
The sudden surge in demand during last year’s peak season saw European and US airports stretched to breaking point. In future years how will Africa’s ailing airports cope in such a fast-moving and unpredictable marketplace?
Open skies might go some way to improving Africa’s cargo market in due course, but only if it goes hand in hand with further investment. The longstanding inadequacy of much of Africa’s airport and road infrastructure impedes development and needs radical investment. Only a small percentage of the continent’s airports have the necessary handling capabilities to meet the needs of all-cargo airlines.
It could be argued that as a charter company we benefit in many ways from the difficulty of moving cargo within Africa. One of the areas we specialise in is delivering heavy and outsize cargo to remote locations across the continent for energy, mining and infrastructure projects.
However, what about the sectors in which we are so active in other parts of the world? A large percentage of the business we do in other geographical markets is serving fast-moving sectors such as automotive, just-in-time manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and e-commerce.
The timely movement of cargo intra-Africa should be improved by open skies, but alongside the limitations of airport infrastructure there needs to be far greater investment in fleets.
As a charter broker we rely on there being a healthy pool of aircraft available in the marketplace. There are some excellent cargo operators located around the continent – but there are often not enough providers out there to serve demand and maximise growth opportunities.
There are companies helping to fill in the gaps in the market – for example our involvement with Magma Aviation which connects key African hubs with European cargo markets – but on a continent-wide basis the industry is lacking the volume of regional carriers and feeder services which would help facilitate growth.
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Magma Aviation serves Africa with a regular freighter service across the continent and into Europe
African aviation policy has historically been focused at a national level which has contributed to a chaotic and fragmented system in the past. Defending the interests of a national airline is of course understandable, but it ultimately hinders the opportunities to do business with regional neighbours.
The challenge is for all of these changes to happen at the same time. The airline industry is a notoriously difficult business in which to succeed and there is a constant battle to achieve profitability – so investment in fleets is only likely to follow deregulation and proper investment in infrastructure.
Open skies is only part of the solution and governments can do a lot more to help open up the aviation sector. If some of the unnecessary barriers to trade are removed we believe air cargo has a lot more to offer Africa.
Gerhard Coetzee is responsible for African cargo charter operations at Chapman Freeborn Airchartering – the world’s leading aircraft charter company.
