Liberalised intra-Africa aviation market ‘critical’

There is a distinct need for some cohesion in Africa about concluding the now-perennial discussion on the 1999 Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) – compiled by the United Nations (UN) body, the Economic Commission for Africa, and designed to progressively establish a liberalised intra-African aviation market concerning, among other things, traffic rights, capacity, frequency and pricing. This call was made by Chris Zweigenthal, CEO of the AirlinesAssociation of Southern Africa (AASA), who told FTW: “There is no doubt in my mind that many African states and airlines are realising that the implementation of the YD is the way to go. “There are obviously some states and airlines that do not support this process. “The states who see the benefits now realise that the formalised implementation of YD is hampered by certain barriers, real and not real, to formal implementation.” These barriers include the inability of the African Civil Aviation Commission (Afcac) to effectively take up its role as the executing agency as designated by the African Union (AU). “Two and a half years after being given the job, Afcac still has to amend its constitution to be able to structure and resource itself to perform the function,” Zweigenthal said.