African Airlines Association Secretary General Abderahmane Berthe shares his priorities for African airlines—including safety and air traffic control reform—ahead of the organization's general assembly in Cairo.
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Rush Transcript
Victoria Moores:
Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for Window Seat, Aviation Week Air Transport Podcast. I'm Air Transport World Europe and Africa Bureau Chief, Victoria Moores, and I'm delighted to welcome you on board. This week I'm joined by Abdérahmane Berthé, who is the Secretary General of AFRAA, which is the African Airlines Association. Welcome, Abdérahmane.
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Thank you.
Victoria Moores:
So African aviation has so much potential, there's a huge opportunity for growth. It's quite a small market in comparison with other regions at the moment. And I'm wondering, just as an introduction to AFRAA and the African market, what's your number-one strategic priority for the association at the moment and for your airline members?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
AFRAA, the African Airlines Association based in Nairobi, is an association of airlines in Africa. Currently, we have 45 member airlines. We also have industry partners, 35 industry partners. As you know, as you said, there is a potential for growth of air transport in Africa and we expect a growth rate of 5% per year during the next few years. And that means every 15 years we'll double the traffic on the continent. However, Africa represent less than 3% of the world traffic currently, so to sustain this growth in the future, there are some challenges on which we need to work. And for that reason, at AFRAA, we have a strategic plan and we have also priorities.
The first priority for us is about safety and security because before safety and security, there is no business possible. And we are seeing in Africa, the safety levels going down this last five years. And for that reason we have set a priority and we have started to organize the Africa Safety and Operation Summit. The first edition was this year in Addis-Ababa. Next year, we'll have a second one in Kigali. The objective is to share best practices on the continent and also we assist our member airlines through workshops and even through consultancy to upgrade and enhance their safety level as well. This is the first priority.
Victoria Moores:
Absolutely. And that reminds me of the Abuja Declaration, which was a declaration on safety for African airlines where really the African Union wanted to progress safety, but I think we are lagging behind on those targets. Is that connected with your conference?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Yes, the safety targets, the Abuja safety targets, of course, we are working with other stakeholders on it, mainly with the African Civil Aviation Commission, AFCAC. The target has been reviewed and amended through the years. And when the safety targets was set, it was a very good thing. The years after we have seen an improvement on the safety level. That's the reason I'm saying the last five years we are seeing that the safety is still a concern and we really need to make sure that we keep a good level of safety. Why? Because as I said, the traffic will double in 15 years. It means that we'll have more people, staff working on the sector. We'll have more aircraft operating on the continent. So its important to make sure that despite this growth, the safety level will be still good.
Victoria Moores:
You mentioned that the safety had gone down. Do you mean that the rate of accidents has been declining or that there has been a bit of an increase?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
There are many reasons, yeah. Currently, the main concern is what we call runway excursions, on the continent. When we made our meeting in May, since the beginning of 2024 to May, we had eight runway excursions on the continent, meaning that aircraft going out of a runway during landing. So it means that we need to make efforts to improve this level of runway excursions, to reduce the level of runway excursions.
Victoria Moores:
Do you have a sense of what's triggering those runway excursions? Is it poor infrastructure at the airport or is it, say, wildlife or what's happening that's causing the aircraft to leave the runway?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
The main reason, I was told by our expert, is the non-stabilized approach of aircraft on runway. So it means that we need to put more effort on training of pilots during simulator training to improve the approach. And it can also be linked to the weather conditions when landing on some airport, when you have crosswinds when landing. It can be also one of the reasons. So it means we really need to share experiences and also to train our pilots regarding this issue.
Victoria Moores:
And you mentioned there that obviously safety is the number-one priority for your airline members and for AFRAA. It sounds as though there are other priorities. What else is right out there at the top of your list?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Just to complete on safety, there are also the infrastructure aspect. It's important to have on every airport a runway safety team. The objective to have these teams is to make sure that the infrastructure, the runway, is always on good condition to receive aircraft. Yes, we have other priorities as well.
The second priority for us is inter-African connectivity and route development. Because we have been talking about it for many years and still African airlines are not really cooperating very well to improve connectivity. And for that reason, at AFRAA, we have been working on a route intelligence portal. We have launched the first version in 2022 and this year during our General Assembly in Cairo in November, we launched a new version of it. The objective of the route intelligence portal is to allow airlines to look at their network and the potential new routes they can develop alone if the market is there or in cooperation with other airlines in airline or culture. So this for us is very important. We'll launch it soon.
The third priority for us is sustainability. And when we talk about sustainability, it's not only environment. For us, economic sustainability of our member airlines because, so far, a few of them are profitable. We need to create a condition for economic sustainability of AFRAA members, meaning to reduce their cost of operation, because we have high cost of operation, or proposing some new projects which can bring more revenues for them.
And regarding environment, AFRAA is working on a very important project currently, which is the free routing airspace on the continent. So it will allow airlines to operate user-preferred routes instead of ATS routes and it'll reduce flight time, CO2 emissions, [and] save maintenance costs of aircraft. And we have been doing trials of AFRAA on Africa since last November, and this week we have another workshop in Nairobi.
This morning I was told that yesterday, Royal Air Maroc operated the flight from Casablanca to West Africa, they saved more than 10 minutes. And also Egypt operated a flight from Cairo in East Africa, they saved more than 10 minutes on one flight. If we want, by end of 2025, to have a full continent on FRA routes—and the AFRAA is not working alone for this project; we are working with ICAO as well and with air navigation service providers because they are involved for the control of aircraft on free routes. So this is a very key project for us on sustainability, cost-saving for our member airlines as well.
Victoria Moores:
It ticks all of those boxes of really helping your members be competitive and helping the environment. I'm curious about the timeline. You mentioned the end of 2025. We know that Europe has been struggling for years to push through air traffic control reform. Sometimes African projects can take longer than anticipated, particularly a project like this. How confident are you that this will come through by the end of 2025?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Because we have all the stakeholders working together, and as you know, the air traffic in Africa is not so busy, like in Europe. In Europe it's difficult because if you look at the traffic, and even they couldn't implement it in some regions in Europe because of the number of traffic every day. In Africa, we don't have so much traffic. So I think it'll be easy to implement. Currently we have six AFRAA members participating to the trials and we will bring also some non-African airlines on the trial. We are very confident that we can do it by end of 2025.
Victoria Moores:
That sounds like a huge project that could really bring some benefits. Earlier on, you also mentioned connectivity and obviously that brings us onto a very long-standing project, which is the Single African Air Transport Market, which is known as SAATM. So for years, Africa has been working to try and implement the kind of flying freedom that we have, say within the European market, within the US market, where you are doing away with those bilateral agreements. Are you seeing any concrete steps towards achieving that liberalization of the intra-African skies?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
There are some improvement, however, the pace is very slow for me. Because if you look at what happened since the Yamoussoukro Declaration in 1988, then we had the decision and now we have a single African air transfer market since 2018. There [has] been some progress. However, we have currently 37 states which committed to SAATM. Only, let's say 10, are really complying with the provision of the Yamoussoukro Declaration.
Victoria Moores:
Which is really to get rid of these bilaterals and to have a labor market.
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Yes, to get rid of the bilateral air service agreements. And AU made a study three years ago, regarding the bilateral air service agreement. Two-thirds of the bilateral, existing bilateral air service agreements are not compliant with the Yamoussoukro Decision.
Victoria Moores:
So the AU is the African Union, which is quite a lot like the European Union and the Yamoussoukro Declaration Decision, that's the regulation that underpins this liberalization?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Yes, yes. Right. So the African Civil Aviation Commission is, let's say, the executing agency of the Yamoussoukro Decision. They are trying to push the agenda and they are going state by state to make sure that they comply with the Yamoussoukro Decision. So there have been some progress, but still, in our view, there are [still] many progress to make on it.
And I want also to talk about our last priority, which is our strategic objectives. We have a strategic plan with five strategic objectives, 2021-2025. So we are working now on the next strategy plan, which will be 2026-2030, and we'll start working on it during our AGA. We have a forum with all our CEOs members to plan the next steps for AFRAA, the next priority and actions. This is also very important for the future of the association.
Victoria Moores:
Absolutely. So that's where you're going to lay down what your next steps are. I think my final question is on financing. It can be a real challenge for African airlines to find the financing that they need to develop their fleet, to grow their network, to really create the kind of connectivity that you were talking about there. Do you have any initiatives underway where you might be able to help fix that problem of the high-cost financing the airlines face, trying to get aircraft to expand their networks?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
It's really a concern because African airlines need to renew their fleet even for environmental sustainability and also to be more efficient. However, access to finance is very difficult for them because most of them don't have a good balance sheet. And for that reason, we are working with African Development Bank on a project to assist the airline to meet the conditions that can allow the bank to support them for aircraft financing. This is also a very important project we have undertaken with AfDB and I hope next year also this initiative will start.
Victoria Moores:
And what would AFRAA's role be in that? What support would you provide that would help the airlines access the financing?
Abdérahmane Berthé:
Our support will be to assess the situation of airline[s] and make some recommendations if there are improvements to make, to improve their situation and to create the conditions for the bank to support the airlines.
Victoria Moores:
So it really is providing that role as a catalyst between the airlines and helping them really develop their business.
That's all we have time for today. So I'd like to thank you, Abdérahmane, for joining us. And I'd also like to thank our producers, Guy Ferneyhough and Cory Hitt, and of course, thank you to you, our listeners, for following Window Seat. Make sure you don't miss us each week by subscribing to the Window Seat Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Until next time, this is Victoria Moores, disembarking from Window Seat.
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