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Postal Address
E d' s n o t e ...
A
little more than a year ago I sat
with IATA CEO Alexandre de
Juniac in his office overlooking
Geneva Airport and challenged
him as to what he was doing about the poor
quality of the regulation of the aviation
industry in Africa. He seemed surprised
by the question, as up until then, industry
regulation had not been a key issue for
IATA.
I am pleased to see that this acceptance
of the regulation standards in Africa by
IATA is now changing. Addressing the
annual African Airlines Convention in
Mauritius, IATA’s Raphael Kuuchi called
for greater cooperation between regulators
and the African airline industry. There are
increasing signs that the cacophony of
complaints from the airlines and general
aviation about the destructive consequences
of poor regulation are increasingly coming
to the fore of IATA’s engagement with
African aviation.
As the representative of almost all the
world’s airlines, IATA represents a huge and
important constituency. Kuuchi reports that
aviation supports $55.8 billion of economic
activity and 6.2 million jobs in Africa.
Without airline service a country’s economy
will simply wither and collapse.
Yet aviation in Africa is being strangled
by poor regulatory oversight. In South
Africa we watch with horror the grotesque
cost in jobs and air connectivity of the battle
between the SACAA and regional airline
CemAir. It is significant that both IATA’s
and the United Nations’ safety standards
were being met by the CemAir, yet it
was unable to satisfy the demands of the
SACAA.
It is therefore not surprising that relations
between the SACAA and the aviation
industry are at their worst ever. It has
become so bad that the industry is resorting
to suing the CAA’s inspectors and managers
in their personal capacities. This is virtually
unprecedented for a normally functioning
industry. Valuable companies are choosing
to operate under other countries’ AOCs.
Many others just give up and quietly go into
other more amenable industries – with less
obstructive bureaucracy.
Another example of how the SACAA is
destroying its industry is that of professional
drone operators. Over a year ago I found
that it was taking 18 months or longer to
get a remote operators’ certificate (ROC).
Despite promises from the SACAA, this
situation has not improved. A drone operator
pioneering their use for specialist crop
spraying had to wait almost two years to
get a ROC. The consequence is that almost
all drone operators in South Africa are
operating illegally. Yet Rwanda manages to
constructively engage with drone operators
- and has in consequence been the fertile
ground for world leading innovations such
as Zipline’s drone-based medicine delivery
service.
It is time for a radical overhaul at the
SACAA. The rot starts from the top. In her
failure to engender a culture of constructive
engagement with the aviation industry Ms
Poppy Khoza has overstayed her tenure and
fails to justify her large salary and bonuses.
She should be quietly ‘promoted’ to some
position at ICAO. And, in keeping with the
new South African ethos, incompetent or
corrupt officials should be fired and left to
face personal damages claims.
JUNE 2019
Edition 128
Editor
Guy Leitch
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