The Sun News Online

May 31, 2008, marks the deadline given by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for all member airlines to migrate from paper ticketing to electronic ticketing (e-ticketing) in order to remain competitive in the dynamic aviation industry.

Thus, what the Secretary General/Chief Executive of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) Mr Christian Folly-Kossi is saying in essence is that airlines in Africa cannot afford to remain with the old order.

Folly-Kossi’s fears are natural, African airlines have perennially lagged behind in global aviation, attributing that to resistant to positive changes.

The AFRAA Chief Executive explains that non compliant airlines, apart from losing revenue, will also find it difficult to interline in this era where airlines belong to various conglomerates.
He speaks more on AFRAA’s role in assisting her members succeed in the highly competitive aviation business.

Excerpts.
Assisting member airlines to meet e-ticketing deadline
AFRAA provided assistance to airlines through sensitization workshops, negotiation of discounted rates, trainings, development of guidelines on implementation and progress monitoring.
More so, in 2006, AFRAA negotiated discounted e-ticketing implementation rates with Amadeus, Sabre and SITA. It was agreed with the solution providers that, individual airlines could access the e-ticketing solution at the agreed preferential prices. In 2007, many airlines benefited through this arrangement by choosing the SITA e-ticketing solution, which was the cheapest of the quotations negotiated.

Implementation template
The Secretariat in consultation with the Commercial and ICT committees developed an e-ticketing implementation template which outlines systematically the processes of implementation. This template was circulated to member airlines as a guide.

Buddy support
Together with IATA, e-ticketing experts were identified in some member airlines and given further training in Johannesburg to enable them provide “Buddy Support” to other airlines that needed help. Through this arrangement, the experts rendered valuable assistance to Air Malawi, Air Botswana, LAM Mozambique, Air Zimbabwe, Precision Air, Air Tanzania, TAAG Angola and Rwandair Express.
e-ticketing partner support.

Kenya Airways has vast experience in the implementation of e-ticketing as one of the first airlines to roll-out this service and has provided support to a number of airlines to successfully implement e-ticketing. Together with Kenya Airways, AFRAA can now provide e-ticketing partner support to any member airlines at very short notice. AFRAA hopes through this initiative to assist airlines that are yet to complete their implementation to fast-track the process and meet the deadline.

Extension of deadline
When AFRAA realized in the first quarter of 2007 that it was going to be difficult for member airlines to meet the December 2007 deadline, and upon the instructions of the Executive Committee, the Secretary General formally wrote to the Director General of IATA to draw his attention to the challenges confronting African airlines and sought IATA support in ensuring that the continent’s operators were not marginalized in the implementation of the projects.

Other AFRAA member airlines also wrote separately to IATA on their specific difficulties. In addition, the Secretary General listed this issue at the top of the agenda of the joint AFRAA/IATA meeting that preceded the IATA AGM in Vancouver. As a result of the combined pressure from Africa and elsewhere, the IATA Board of Governors decided to extend the e-ticketing deadline to 31st May 2008.

Aviation in Africa vis-a-vis global level
Let me say here that the global airline industry has finally recovered from the down turn that followed September 11. The traffic grew and business returned to profitability despite the skyrocketing of jet fuel prices that offset much of the positive results.
In Africa, this trend is noticeable, alongside the continent’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that has grown at the rate of 5 – 6per cent in most countries, air traffic has increased roughly by 6per cent across the continent.

African air traffic ranks among the fastest growing. This has increased competition with the entry into Africa of new international carriers from other continents and powerful countries which include US, Middle-East countries, China
At the same time, many African carriers are emerging as strong continental and worldwide players. A few of them have joined or plan to join a global alliance group.
Our governments need to encourage these progressive airlines and pave the way for them to further expand and increase air services across the continent for our countries to develop inter-African trade and tourism.

The industry’s readiness is obvious. In the course of the last two years, intra-African routes have tremendously developed by Royal Air Maroc, Afriqiyah Airways, Egyptair, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and South African Airways as well as small exemplary airlines such as Belleview, Air Senegal International and Air Burkina.

Five major airlines have emerged in this country. They include, Virgin Nigeria, Arik Air, Aero Contractors, Belleview, Chanchangi which have yet to play decisive roles on international routes.
African airlines have on order 150 new modern aircraft up from 84 on order in 2006.
The current forecasts establish that Africa will need 500 airplanes worth USD50 billion in the next 20 years. The modern fleet acquired, ordered and planned, will potentially make the industry competitive if properly organized.

Above all, implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision, which provides that African airlines operate freely without any restrictions on all intra-African routes, should be fully and totally implemented.
We would like to renew here our request for the Ministry of Aviation of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to organize, this year, the first meeting of the “Club of the Ready and Willing States” that are determined to speed up the YD implementation.

An effective creation of the Club. Club will definitely introduce a new momentum for a speedy implementation of the Yamoussoukro.
We welcome the decision of the 3rd Conference of the African Ministers of Aviation to confer AFCAC with the duty of the executing agency. AFRAA urges all African Governments, regional economic communities and financial institutions to provide AFCAC with the necessary financial resources to enable it execute its new role.

As we expedite the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision, we urge our Ministers in charge of aviation to adopt at their upcoming meeting in Algiers, a common African air transport external policy to govern African countries air service agreements negotiations with third countries. A draft paper has been already prepared by the experts with a strong AFRAA contribution. A final decision is now dearly needed.

The issue of brain drain has had huge adverse and damaging effects on our airlines. The poaching of the pilots, air traffic controllers and other management staff has been pursued with total impunity. ICAO, IATA and the African Union Conference of Ministers of Aviation ought to take up this matter for an international solution that includes a massive funding of the training in Africa of all these staff that are on high demand.

International Regulatory Developments
The Association organized a joint AFRAA/IATA Regulatory Seminar in Maputo on 30 March. This tradition has now been established by the two organizations to regularly update member airlines, African regulators and other air law practitioners on the latest developments affecting the Industry.
AFRAA organized other trainings including in-house trainings to further enhance the knowledge and understanding on these regulatory developments.
Training in AFRAA has been over the last years a sustainable value-added activity from which most member airlines greatly benefited. From 2003 to 2007, AFRAA trained a total number of 1370 airline staff members from 44 different carriers.

Plans for 2008
The Association’s activities will focus, in 2008, on the realization of a few common projects, on assistance to member airlines for timely compliance with the e-ticketing and IOSA deadlines and creation of awareness on ICT developments and airline business solutions. AFRAA will further pursue and enhance its training services to member airlines.
AFRAA will also gear up to effectively commence the joint fuel purchase project by the end of the year.
More so, the joint ground handling services will also be launched in 2008. The first meeting of this project is scheduled to be held in Nairobi on Wednesday, 26th March 2008.
In Information and Communications Technology (ICT), the Association will equally push for joint projects on ICT airline solutions

Tariffs and flex fares
To help member airlines keep up with new developments in the industry and take required actions, AFRAA Secretariat and IATA co-organised a meeting on Flex Fares hosted by Ethiopian Airlines in Addis Ababa on 28-29 February 2008. The meeting was attended by 24 participants representing 12 airlines and two Civil Aviation Authorities.

The purpose of the meeting was to explain in detail the e-tariffs and flex fare concept as an alternative solution after the termination of IATA’s anti-trust immunity for face-to-face IATA Tariff consultations in the EU and Australia and the implications of this development. The commencement dates for Flex Fares between Africa- Europe and between Africa- South West Pacific are 1 May 2008 and 1 July 2008 respectively.

At the end of the meeting, airlines and regulators agreed on a set of action items and airlines made a commitment to actively participate in the process by filing their fares for their key markets for the system to take them into consideration in the calculation of Flex Fares. Airlines also requested AFRAA to continue sensitizing all member airlines on this important development. AFRAA was invited to raise the awareness of Civil Aviation Authorities which are supposed approve Flex Fares to become effective.