10 May 2009
Addis Ababa — The Financial crisis prevailing in the world is surely to hurt the aviation industry in Africa by sharply declining demand for passenger and cargo services, the Ministry of Transport and Communication said on Thursday.
A growing number of airports are winding up as the global downturn sends one of the world's biggest industries plunging into the red.
The African civil aviation wing of the International Transport Workers' Federation held a conference here to discuss impacts of world economic melt down and its consequences on the workers in the sector.
In his opening remarks to the conference held at the Ghion Hotel, State Minister of Transport and Communication Getachew Mengistie, said air transport was one of the industries hit by the financial and economic crises in the world.
"As a result of this, current and forecasted indicators show that demand for passenger and Cargo services has been declining and may continue to deteriorate sharply" he said.
The air transport in Africa currently provides half a million jobs with annual revenue of 12 billion US dollar.
According to IATA, In 2009, the cargo traffic was expected to fall by 13%, and passenger traffic to decline by 5.7% which resulted in a decline in airlines' revenue by 12% or 63 billion USD, while the over all aviation industry revenue shrinks significantly.
In this regard, Getachew said airlines and the over all aviation industry in Africa is bound to face the consequence of the Economic depression.
He said it would be vital for the industry to find a way out of the current predicament without jeopardizing the labor force.
"Therefore, there is a need to manage this situation properly in order to continue to survive, of course with out jeopardizing the valuable labor force that is extremely necessary to run the service more efficiently," said the state minister, in front of the representatives from 16 African countries' aviation industry.
Regardless of the pressing need to have an efficient air transport system and presence of promising market for the service, Africa accounts less than 5% of the world air traffic flaw as measured by the movement of people and goods to and from, as well as within the continent.
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