IATA Launches Programme to Improve Aviation Safety in Africa

•Urges Ethiopia to clear airlines’ trapped funds

Chinedu Eze

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is set to launch the Collaborative Aviation Safety Improvement Program (CASIP) in order to reduce accident and serious incident rate across Africa as part of its Focus Africa initiative.

This was the major activity of IATA’s Focus Africa held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia yesterday.

The initiative is a collaborative idea to strengthen aviation’s economic contribution on the continent.

Partners of the program included the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing, and the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA).

IATA stated that together, the CASIP partners would prioritise the most pressing safety concerns on the continent and rally the resources needed to address them, stressing that benefits of improving aviation safety in Africa would be spread across the economies and societies of the continent.

“Improving aviation safety will play an important role in Africa’s overall development. Safe, efficient and reliable air connectivity is a major driving contribution to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“In that sense, CASIP will make it clear to governments across the continent that aviation must be prioritised as an integral part of national development strategies.

“With such broad benefits at stake, we hope that other parties will be encouraged to join the CASIP effort,” said IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh.

IATA stated that the starting point for safety improvement was the effective use of global standards for safety.

At government level, a key indicator is effective implementation of ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS), adding that data for the year 2022, revealed considerable room for improvement with only 28 of 54 African states reaching an effective implementation rate for ICAO SARPS of 60 per cent or higher.

The CASIP partners would identify deficiencies in operational safety and implement corrective action plans; provide safety training and workshops continent wide and promote a data-driven approach to safety performance with emphasis on making safety data available to decision-makers and ensuring efficient accident/incident reporting

“Improving safety performance is a priority for Africa. And we don’t need to reinvent the wheel to deliver the needed results. Collaborative safety teams in Latin America have demonstrated that safety improves when government and industry work together to implement global standards.

“By working together, the partners will pool resources to have a greater impact on areas where risk can be reduced, leading to measurable improvements in safety,” said Walsh.

Meanwhile, IATA has called on the government of Ethiopia to act swiftly to clear the $95 million in airline funds blocked from repatriation so as not to threaten the country’s connectivity, saying that the ability to repatriate revenues was guaranteed in international agreements and that all parties must abide by the agreements to keep the world connected by air.

IATA also noted that Ethiopia was recovering strongly from the COVID-19 crisis, remarking that Ethiopia’s benchmark regional connectivity (within Africa) stands at 113 per cent of pre-crisis levels according to IATA’s Connectivity Index.

Also, passenger traffic originating from Ethiopia was tracked at 19 per cent above pre-crisis levels in the first quarter of 2023 (latest data), which was well ahead of Africa’s overall passenger demand which stood at 8.7 per cent above pre-crisis levels in the first quarter.

“The low allocation of USD to the aviation industry by the Ethiopian government and Central Bank means that $95 million in airline funds are blocked in the country.

This sends all the wrong signals and puts at risk the economic and social benefits that its global hub supports Ethiopia’s development with. Ethiopia must follow the global rules that it benefits from. It’s time for the government to work with industry to resolve this situation quickly,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

But Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO, Mr. Mesfin Tasew, stated, “Ethiopian Airlines is performing very well. Our current performance, in all parameters, indicates that our success will continue strong. We have recovered well from the impacts of the pandemic. By the end of this fiscal year, we expect to generate $6.1 billion, this is a 20 per cent growth compared to our last year’s performance.”