Despite some progress in the safety record of African airline carriers in recent years, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has lamented the “unfortunate fact” that the African aviation industry’s safety performance “still does not look good”, adding that urgent measures were required to restore global confidence in the continent’s fleets.

Addressing the South African Aviation Forum, in Cape Town, she added that the sale of older generation aircraft to some operators in Africa was “a risk factor” in African airspace.

“While many of these aircraft still have many, many years of service ahead of them, it is quite clear that we should be concerned about far too many of them. 

“We need to urgently develop an African air transport programme with a strong element of safety and security in the air transport sector. We simply cannot allow safety and security issues to undermine confidence in our air transport systems,” she said on Wednesday.

Peters emphasised that, as air transportation became a primary means of travelling between remote areas, traffic on traditional air corridors across the continent to Europe and elsewhere was increasing and creating new air corridors.

“Our biggest challenges as Africa must therefore be our focus on the state of air navigation systems, airspace management and control, adequate and secure airport infrastructure and ground-based navigation aids.

“These include proper and safe exclusion areas for people and animals around runways, taxiways, aprons, as well as the existence of accurate navigation maps and data about the state of airports and landing strips. These measures, done correctly, will ensure safety of our skies,” she noted.

Peters believed an improved continental aviation safety performance would require intergovernmental collaboration and cooperation and the pooling of resources and existing capacities, regardless of whether these capacities were better found abroad.

“We need to foster technological innovation to improve the ability to combat challenges in the security system. We need to harmonise the security requirements and put adequate legislation in place. 

“We also need to attract the right calibre of staff in sufficient numbers and develop the human resources that will give the continent an ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances,” she commented.

To this end, the Minister outlined that she had instructed the South African Civil Aviation Authority to provide technical assistance to those African countries with significant safety concerns.

The authority had, thus far, offered assistance to ten African countries – with the majority of these located within the Southern African Development Community.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao), the International Air Transport Association, the African Airlines Association and the African Civil Aviation Commission had further aided African States with the implementation of several initiatives aimed at improving aviation safety and security.

SOUTH AFRICAN STRATEGY
Noting that South Africa needed a globally competitive aviation industry to support its economy, tourism, manufacturing and service industries, Peters said government’s “strong” aviation policy framework had allowed the local sector to generate “billions” of rands each year and provide a gateway to the global marketplace.

She added that the industry remained a permanent item on government’s agenda, and that it had, through the Airports Development Plan, invested more than R30-billion in airport infrastructure development.  

According to Peters, air travel in South Africa had grown at above 10% a year over the past six years, owing largely to the proliferation of low-cost airlines following the deregulation of the industry and the increased volume of international traffic flowing into the country.

“In terms of passenger growth, between 1994 and 2000, the rate of domestic growth was pinned at 7.5% compared with the global rate of 3%. 

“Similarly, while global international traffic grew at an average of 7% during this period, South Africa experienced an international passenger growth rate of some 8.5%,” she asserted.

‘BRAIN DRAIN’
Peters further called for stronger leadership and skills within the South African aviation sector, which she said continued to be a casualty of “brain drain”.

According to Icao, the global aviation industry had a current shortfall of over 200 000 pilots and about 400 000 maintenance employees.

“The scenario is equally bleak with respect to the skills development in the rest of the continent, where the industry is relatively underdeveloped and characterised by weak and fragmented airlines that are faced with the common challenges such as undercapitalisation, difficulty in attracting finance for equipment purchases, narrow route networks, ageing aircraft, a growing insufficiency of qualified aviation personnel and socioeconomic challenges,” she said.

This situation was exacerbated by the consistent loss of skilled and qualified manpower to other regions, particularly the Middle East and Asia Pacific, whose industries were rapidly expanding.

“Collectively, these challenges have stripped the aviation industry’s competitive edge in Africa. The issues of skills and leadership development are of paramount importance as there can never be development if these lack. The way forward is to work alongside each other across airport operators and airlines, across governments and local regions, and across various continents,” she held.