State of Indegenous Aviation Industry in Africa

The last couple of years have seen many African airline struggles for a spectrum of reasons; Ebola outbreak in West Africa, low commodity prices, threat of terrorism, competition from Middle Eastern airlines among others.

Many aviation experts in Africa such as pilots, technicians and management personnel were trained in the mid 60s during the industry’s infancy stages. Since then the number of trained personnel has not grown in tandem with the industry’s growth.

For the aviation industry to grow and keep up with global competition the continent has to aggressively build the capacity of its human resource.

What is a fact is the aviation industry will continue to grow supported by more than a billion populations and a large land mass; more than 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land is located in Africa. Africa is very rich with natural resources such as oil and minerals, a young population that can be trained and work.

The greatest danger Africa faces is that even as the aviation industry in the continent is growing rapidly; indigenous African aviation is either stagnating or declining.

Three decades ago the market share of indigenous African airlines was estimated to be 60%, today however the market share has shrinked to just 20%.

Africa must invest in training its people as professional pilots, technicians, engineers and all related aviation fields. Further indigenous African airlines must diversify their businesses or tweak their business model to match 21^st century demands. Anything less would mean losing the continent’s aviation completely.