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Airlines - Mike Gough

Bush Pilot - Hugh Pryor

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Interview: Dick Murianki^14

SA Cargo Conference

Companies: CemAir 18

SAA Privatisation

Defence:

Darren Olivier

28

Aviation Directory

Botswana Air Show

April 2015

Edition 79

I

T is axiomatic that African

governments do not properly grasp

the importance of general aviation.

There are a number of reasons for

this. Perhaps the most pervasive is

a perception that small aeroplanes

are the legacy of colonial

powers. The other is that it is inherently anti-

developmental, as it is for rich people.

The Oxford Economics Research Unit

has conducted a number of region specific

studies which have done much to bolster the

essential economic contribution provided by

aviation. The continent is characterised by

very poor terrestrial transport infrastructure

and much of it is in the so-called dendritic

drainage pattern which was designed to drain

the continent to the ports. There is thus classic

underdevelopment of intra-African transport

linkages and this has a severe impact on intra-

African trade.

It is research reports such as those by

Oxford Economics that spell out in detail

how essential aviation’s contribution is to the

regional transport of work. It is therefore not

surprising that SAA, which still has its back to

the wall defending itself against virulent attacks

on its annual cost of billions of Rands to the

taxpayer (and thus the poor), relies heavily on

the southern African Oxford Economics study.

In this issue we bring you the views of

Mr Leon Louw, the head of South Africa’s

Free Market Foundation, on SAA. Not

unsurprisingly, Louw argues that the state has

no role running an airline and that SAA should

be liquidated. He argues that subsidising the

airline is as wasteful and anti the poor as

subsidising the opera. The counterpoint to

this free market view is provided by an SAA

staffer who quotes the Oxford Economics

study’s findings on the large economic benefit,

particularly the return on investment and

multipliers, created by air transport linkages.

If further evidence is required of the vital

function of general aviation, the vast Cape

Peninsula fires provides an excellent case

study. Working on Fire is a South African

government programme that was designed

to fulfil a dual role. In addition to its role

fighting fires, it was designed to alleviate

unemployment and so has employed 5,000

ground troops based at local authorities across

the country. Yet it is the helicopters and the

fixed wing fire bombers that have been the

saviour of probably billions of Rands worth of

property that would have been destroyed by the

fires. As one of the helicopter pilots remarked,

“Aviation critics query the five million Rand

cost of our operations, yet we have saved

hundreds of ten million Rand mansions.”

In typical bureaucratic short-sightedness

the Huey helicopter operators had to overcome

massive resistance from the South African

Civil Aviation Authority to obtain Non-

Type Certified authorities to fly. Yet with

entrepreneurial determination they persevered

and these Vietnam War veteran helicopters

have now become an iconic symbol of the

effectiveness of general aviation.