There is not much room in the African skies for charter operators in the air cargo market, said Justin Bowman, CEO of Air Charter Services (ACS), speaking on the sidelines of the Air Cargo Africa 2015 conference in Johannesburg last month. “One of the biggest challenges we face in trying to grow our airfreight operations in Africa is route protection by the scheduled airlines,” he said, adding that governments would push for bilateral relationships for their national carriers but airfreight charters were never considered. According to Bowman, freighter capacity is also a major challenge. “Charter companies often cannot afford to purchase the latest freighter models but getting hold of older aircraft is nigh on impossible.” Lack of available skills in Africa is also an issue he said. “I’d like to challenge the airline representative bodies in Africa to provide more handson training in all spheres of air cargo – from pilots to handlers.”
