Nomad Africa - April 2018

Issue 11 | ...Celebrating the world’s richest continent | http://www.nomadafricamag.com | 69

Special Feature | Open Skies

o the layman it all sounds

French, but to aviation in-

dustry players, it’s only just

the beginning of what will

hopefully be a burgeoning

fully fledged, competitive

airline industry thereby lev-

elling the African playing

field between airlines.

The Single African Air Transport Market

(“SAATM”) is one of the flagship projects

of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 en-

suring that aviation plays a major role in

connecting Africa in achieving social, eco-

nomic and political integration and boost

intra-Africa trade.

Originally evolved from and known as the

Yamoussoukro Declaration in 1988, which

then became the Yamoussoukro Decision

(“YD”) in 1999, the recently signed

SAATM remains the single most impor-

tant air transport reform policy initiative

by African Governments to date.

Why was this agreement necessary at all?

Do we not have enough airlines flying the

skies, or is all not as it seems to be? This

is, of course, a naïve question if you are a

role player in aviation – but not to the

man in the street – of which there are mil-

lions in Africa who are simply not even

aware of SAATM, but will be indirectly af-

fected at one time or another in the fu-

ture.

Simply put, it means changing old avia-

tion rules in order to let players explore

undiscovered frontiers in the game. The

SAATM was implemented by recognising

and acknowledging that restrictive and

protectionist intra-African regulations ex-

isted based primarily on Bilateral Air Serv-

ices Agreements (“BASAs”). These very

agreements impeded the growth and im -

provement of air transport on the African

continent. One of the vital parts of the

Decision was air service liberalisation,

which was viewed as a means to develop

and free up African airspace. In essence, it

is meant to open up air new travel routes

within Africa and allow the 23 signatories

multilateral exchanges of up to fifth free-

dom air traffic rights between African

destinations.

In order to fully understand what this ac-

tually means, we need to understand the

concept of freedom of the air rights.

Freedoms of the air are a set of commer-

cial aviation rights granting a country's

airline an allocated permission to enter

and land in another country's airspace.

The formulisation of these rights came

about as a result of disagreements be-

tween international states over the ex-

tent of aviation liberalisation at the

Convention on International Civil Aviation

of 1944, known as the Chicago Conven-

tion. These “freedoms” are the funda-

mental building blocks of international

commercial aviation route networks and

confer entitlement to operate interna-

tional air services only within the scope of

various applicable multilateral and bilat-

eral treaties (air services agreements) be-

tween countries.

Since 1944 aviation has grown exponen-

tially and IATA’s work duly expanded,

however, the Chicago Convention could

not initially resolve the issue of who flies

where, which resulted in the thousands of

bilateral air transport agreements be-

tween countries in existence today.

Governments and aviation industry role

players needed a mechanism that would

not only disable protectionist strategies

that many African States employ to pro-

tect the existing (and future) market

share of their domestic airlines, but would

also realise the full potential and benefits

of the Yamoussoukro Decision, thereby

unlocking the full potential of the African

aviation industry and help to enhance

connectivity, facilitate trade and tourism,

create employment, and ensure that the

aviation industry plays a more prominent

role in the global economy and signifi-

cantly contribute to the AU’s Agenda

2063.

Ultimately, how will the new SAATM ben-

efit aviation in Africa and open up the

playing fields? We spoke to aviation ex-

pert Linden Birns, managing director of

Plane Talking:

“Under the current regime of restrictive

bilateral air transport agreements, cross-

border airline flights must either originate

or terminate in their home country.

SAATM envisages unrestricted access and

operations between any points on the

continent, without flights having to start

or end in the airline's home nation.”

“This is precisely what has taken place in

Europe under the EU and what gave rise

to the big low cost carriers such as

Ryanair, easyJet and Vueling as well as

niche regional feeders like FlyBe.”

t