In an attempt to strengthen Africa’s aviation sector, International Air Transport Association (IATA) has launched a new initiative called ‘Focus Africa’ to align private and public stakeholders to contribute towards Africa’s aviation sector. The initiative will help increase aviation’s contribution to Africa’s economic and social development and improve connectivity, safety and reliability for passengers and shippers
“Africa accounts for 18% of the global population, but just 2.1% of air transport activities including cargo and passenger. Closing that gap, so that Africa can benefit from the connectivity, jobs and growth that aviation enables, is what Focus Africa is all about,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.
African aviation is facing some of the major challenges like Infrastructure constraints, high costs, lack of connectivity, regulatory impediments, slow adoption of global standards and skills shortages. Besides the African airlines have already suffered cumulative losses of $3.5 billion for 2020-2022 with an estimated loss of $213 million in 2023.
The Focus Africa initiative renews IATA’s commitment to supporting aviation on the continent. As the incoming Chair of the IATA Board of Governors, and the first from Africa since 1993, I look forward to ensuring that this initiative gets off to a great start and delivers benefits that are measurable,” said Yvonne Makolo, CEO of RwandAir and first female Chair of the IATA Board of Governors (2023-2024).
IATA has faith in African civil aviation recovery. Prior to the pandemic, aviation industry in the continent supported 7.7 million jobs and $63 billion in economic activity. Going ahead, the demand is expected to triple over the next two decades. Africa is already on the recovery path with Air cargo recovery at 31.4% over 2019 levels and air travel is 93% of 2019 levels. Full recovery for air travel is expected in 2024.
Meanwhile the partners for 'Force Africa' will be announced and join forces in Addis Ababa on June 20-21 to officially launch the initiative with more details for each task area.