AIR TRANSPORT AND AIRPORTS
Africa’s single air transport market gains four more signatories
Liberalisation is progressing on paper faster than in schedules, but the direction is finally consistent.
Aerospace Garage desk
Four more states have signed up to the Single African Air Transport Market, taking the total past forty. The agreement removes capacity and frequency restrictions between signatories, in principle allowing any African carrier to serve any route between member states.
Practice lags. Bilateral protections persist in the form of slot allocation, ground-handling monopolies and fuel pricing, and several signatories have not implemented the provisions they endorsed. Intra-African fares remain among the highest per kilometre anywhere.
The carriers positioned to benefit are those with hub economics already working — Ethiopian above all, with ASKY as its West African feeder. For smaller flag carriers, liberalisation is as much threat as opportunity.
Our read: judge implementation by fifth-freedom routes actually flown, not by signatures collected.
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