Africa must move forward on airline safety, infrastructure and modern business practices, said International Air Transport Association director general Giovanni Bisignani on a visit to Kenya and South Africa. If it does not, the continent’s economy will suffer as the world pushes toward transparency in airline standards, he warns.
Launching IATA’s “four-point agenda for Africa”, Bisignani pointed out that airlines in the continent suffered an average of 10.84 hull losses per million sectors a year during the last decade. Although Africa’s rate halved to 5.2 hull losses per million sectors in 2004, that still leaves it “6.6 times worse than the global average”, says Bisignani. Highlighting the European political debate on publishing blacklists of banned airlines, Bisignani says that while he does not believe such a policy is an effective tool for improving airline safety, African states have to accept the fact that the world is moving towards systems for benchmarking safety standards.
Source: Flight International
