HERE’S WHY WHAT HAPPENS IN LOME THIS WEEK AT ECOWAS TRANSPORT SUMMIT CANNOT AFFORD TO STAY IN LOME
BY E K Bensah Jr
An institution is only as effective as the buy-in of people patronizing it. I want to believe the same can be said about the AU and its institutions.
The AU possesses a Specialized agency in Dakar, Senegal that is responsible for promoting equitable civil aviation among MS, but most importantly, helping to implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD). It is called the African Civil Aviation Commission(AFCAC)
YD is a precursor to the Agenda 2063 flagship project Single African Airline Transport Mechanism (SAATM).
Both promote a single African aviation market, help to reduce bilateral air services agreement in exchange for multilateral agreements, plus help reduce TCFs (taxes, charges and fees), which are the backbone in understanding African aviation.
Equally important in understanding African aviation are freedoms, one of which is fifth freedom, which is the right of an airline to leave its country of origin with passengers, drop in another country and pick up passengers — all en route to its final destination.
For example, Asky leaves Lome, Togo for Johannesburg, but stops in DRC to pick up passengers and refuel. That’s 5th freedom, which SAATM encourages as it encourages intra-African routes to develop.
Protecting the passenger
Embedded in the SAATM Is the necessity of consumer protection, which a fully-liberalized African aviation market calls for.
It is now dawning on many of us that we need to pay greater attention to the consumer aspect of aviation.
Each civil aviation agency is supposed to have a consumer protection officer.. Many did not know!
So, there are two ways of filing complaints:
First, the national level – to your national civil aviation authority or counterpart
Secondly, the Continental level – to the Dakar-based AU agency responsible for civil aviation, which is the African Civil Aviation Commission(AFCAC). AFcAC is also the implementer of Agenda 2063’s Single African Air Transport Market(SAATM), which calls for African Open Skies and more.
I know the Consumer Protection Officer at AfCFAC who has gladly offered his email for submission of complaints. He stresses it is also important to copy the general AfCAC email.
He looks forward to receiving any complaints about airlines passengers may have.
Why we cannot call AFCAC a paper tiger
I struggle to call AfCAC a paper tiger– an age-old AU institution regulating our Africa skies, but with little teeth.
The SG of AfCAC, a Nigerian lawyer by name Adeyemi, has since she assumed reigns of AfCAC given more visibility to it, including the work of SAATM than one has ever seen.
The very conception of a fast-tracking of SAATM through the SAATM-Pilot Implementation Programme (SAATM-PIP),which has gained attention of some 15 countries and counting, speaks to progress in Africa’s Aviation.
The fifth freedom is critical to SAATM-PIP as AfCAC is encouraging member states/airlines to increase 5th freedom arrangements by 2025 as this will help cohere more member states more closely to SAATM and its implementation.
Aviation fuel is expensive, and with Dangote now producing aviation fuel not just for domestic Nigerian market, but also for West Africa means greater options and discussions on joint fuel purchases, which will help bring down costs of airline tickets.
Another important strategy working well in East Africa is domestication of regional and international routes so as to further reduce airline tickets.
I was glad to hear at yesterday’s ECOWAS Meeting on Day 1 that Gambia and Senegal have already commenced conversations on domesticating their country flights as a way of bringing down costs.
This much was confirmed by the Director-General of the Gambian Civil Aviation Authority, who also doubles as head of the Banjul Accord Group Secretariat (BAG).
Established in 2009, the Banjul Accord Group (BAGOSOO) aims to promote safe, efficient use and development of civil aviation within and outside BAG Member States.The Banjul Accord Group currently has seven (7) member states: Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
For DG Fansu Bojang, “In order to reduce the cost of air travel, we have decided to domesticate air travel between Banjul and Dakar which will get rid of these passenger charges and tariffs that are attributable to international traffic since travel between the two cities will be deemed domestic.”. He continues that “we are anticipating that with the full implementation of the domestication, there will be a surge in passenger numbers between the two countries.”.
Demystifying the concept of domestication of flights at a SAATM event earlier in October, including why it was possible to extend domestication to Sierra Leone, he said “The idea is, at the end of the day, we domesticate traffic between all the BAG member states. We’re anticipating that this would not be very difficult to do because within BAG, we have already signed a Multilateral Air Services Agreement (MASA), replacing the bilateral air services agreements between the States which is applicable to all 7 member states. In essence, once one BAG State certifies an airline or gives them a license, this airline is now considered a BAG operator, meaning that the airline can easily fly to any of the countries which makes it much easier”
On why West Africa remains one of the most expensive regions to fly to and from, he said emphatically: “At the current rate of ticket prices in our sub-region, traveling by air is reserved for the elite as well as government travelers because it is beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, and these target groups have maxed out. The rest of the citizens cannot travel by air because they cannot afford it at this current rate of ticket prices.”
By way of panacea, he explained.”If we really want to improve air traffic and ensure an increase in air transport activities, we really have to think outside the box and ways of reducing the cost of air travel so that the everyday people, who should be our next target, can also choose to fly”.
As day 2 opens to a beautiful Lome, we will be watching with bated breath as to what new strategies and arguments might be advanced to further the need of urgently-reducing the costs of taxes, charges and fees for West Africa’s aviation sector.
ENDS