Artwell Dlamini
26 August 2008
Johannesburg — AFRICA has a high aviation accident rate proportional to its air traffic, an aviation conference heard yesterday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US regulatory body, said "political will" was needed to make African skies safer.
Speaking at the 14th Aviation and Allied Business Leadership Conference in Johannesburg yesterday, top FAA official Robert Sturgell urged African leaders to share aviation safety information globally.
Sturgell said the US had asked the International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao), a United Nations agency, to make the US's entire aviation audit report public.
Icao requires member states to adhere to the universal safety oversight audit, which promotes aviation safety through the regular auditing of safety oversight systems.
The US bars all countries that fail to comply with the Icao standards from extending their air services to that country.
Sturgell said Africa had 4,5% of the world's air traffic, but accounted for 25% of total accidents.
Noting that the US was helping some sub-Saharan countries to comply with Icao standards, Sturgell said Africa's air traffic was growing faster than the global average.
"This growth is good news, but we need to make sure that our ability to meet safety standards grows as well," he said.
Transport Minister Jeff Radebe agreed that aviation safety statistics in Africa made "poor reading".
He said accidents related to poor ground handling at the airports were a "concern". Some airports in Africa were saddled with outdated air traffic and navigation technologies, infrastructure deficiencies and a lack of skills.
Radebe said SA was making progress in liberalising the country's skies.
However, his Kenyan counterpart, Chirau Ali Mwakwere, said there were still some instances where one had to fly to another continent in order to reach another African country.
He said African countries were increasingly opening up their air space to airlines from sister countries, even though the pace of this liberalisation "may not be as fast as some people would desire".
"The easing of unnecessary restrictions involving travelling for our citizens across the continent, movement of high-value goods and perishable horticultural products could benefit our people and open up more markets for our products," he said.
African Civil Aviation Commission president Chris Kuto said what African countries needed was a "common civil aviation policy". He said some policies were not friendly to aviation on the continent.
Christian Folly-Kossi, secretary-general of the African Airlines Association, said the recent European Union-US open sky deal had increased pressure on Africa to create a "single air space" too.
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