By Marie-Noelle NWOKOLO
Africa’s aviation sector is at a critical juncture. While the challenges – fragmented airspace, high fares, and limited connectivity – are well known, the path forward is now clearer.
Several African countries have already demonstrated how the right policies, partnerships, and investments can create robust aviation sectors that drive economic growth and regional integration.
This article builds on the earlier exploration of Africa’s self-imposed air travel crisis and moves beyond outlining the problems to focus on actionable solutions. As Africa struggles with its aviation blues, strategic reforms in policy, infrastructure, and partnerships offer a way to unlock its full aviation potential.
From the success of Ethiopian Airlines to the Cape Town Air Access initiative, there are real-world lessons that African governments can learn from to finally soar above the obstacles that have long constrained their aviation sector.
The Problem: Missed Opportunities and Protectionism
Protectionist policies, crippling costs, and inefficient regulations bog down African airlines. Intra-African flights are some of the most expensive in the world, a major hindrance to trade, business, and travel. Despite being home to 18% of the world’s population, Africa accounts for just 2% of global air passenger traffic.
This is not inevitable – it is self-imposed. The continent’s leaders must act decisively to liberalize air service agreements and break free from protectionism because, so far, intra-African trade, tourism, and investment that could be catalyzed by robust air connectivity have stagnated.
The 1999 Yamoussoukro Decision (YD), while initially promising, has not been fully realized. The African Union’s Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), launched in 2018, offers renewed hope, but implementation has been slow.
Protectionist policies, deeply ingrained in many national governments, continue to hinder the open skies framework, resulting in missed economic opportunities.
However, African countries need not be held back by these systemic barriers. If nations can unlock their skies, they could immediately benefit from increased routes, reduced costs, and expanded job opportunities.
The question is not whether the potential is there, but how to systematically address the structural problems holding Africa back from realizing this potential.
The Myth of National Carriers
Across the continent, national airlines are often portrayed as symbols of sovereignty and national pride. Yet, often, they turn into overpriced PR stunts, saddling governments with debt, corruption scandals, and stranded passengers.
The Ethiopian Airlines model provides a stark contrast. While many national carriers have struggled under the weight of mismanagement and political interference, Ethiopian Airlines stands out as a paragon of how a state-owned airline can thrive when driven by commercial discipline, rather than political motives.
ET’s success isn’t because it’s a national carrier, it’s because it’s not run like one. Despite being fully state-owned, its focus on commercial viability and operational independence over symbolic nationalism has been instrumental to its success today. Second, the seeds of today’s success were planted in 1946, when Ethiopia inked a deal with Trans World Airlines (TWA) to manage the airline.
TWA’s role was more than technical; it was strategic — training pilots, setting standards, and building systems. Crucially, there was a clear Ethiopianisation plan. Within 30 years, locals were running the show, and today, it serves over 130 destinations worldwide with over 13 million passengers.
Ethiopian Airlines was one of the few global carriers to maintain profitability during the COVID-19 crisis, innovating by converting passenger aircraft into freighters to stay operational while others grounded fleets.
Ethiopian Airlines’ cost-conscious culture has been one of its most powerful shields against the turbulence that has grounded many of its peers. While many national carriers collapsed trying to look the part – buying wide-body jets before building a market – ET ensured every dollar spent returned value.
In a 2020 interview, then-CEO Tewolde Gebremariam put it plainly: “Cost is critical for the airline business since it is very difficult to make profits. We are very prudent and very frugal”. He wasn’t exaggerating. Gebremariam drove a 15-year-old Honda, and the airline’s headquarters near Addis Ababa’s Bole Airport was functional and modest. “You cannot,” the CEO warned, “be as lavish as South African Airways, and expect to survive.”
That’s the difference. ET was insulated largely from political egos and vanity spending. Its leadership didn’t answer to feel-good political whims. It answered to the balance sheet. ET stayed grounded – figuratively and financially – by making commercial viability, not national vanity, its north star.
And it didn’t stop there. ET now runs an entire aviation value chain – cargo, catering, ground handling, aircraft maintenance (MRO), and even the airport terminal – a strategy of backward integration that boosts efficiency and margins. Most African national carrier projects ignore this holistic model, expecting a standalone airline to survive in a brutally competitive global market.
Ethiopian Airlines proves that when discipline meets commercial clarity, state-owned enterprises can thrive. The real question for governments is this: Are you building real businesses or expensive distractions disguised as national pride?
It’s not merely about the flag on the tailfin. It’s about leadership, accountability, and the courage to run an airline like a business, not a billboard.
Cape Town’s Air Access: How to Build a Hub Without a Flag Carrier
Now let’s fly 5,000 kilometers south to Cape Town, where they built a booming international air hub without a functioning national carrier. In South Africa’s Western Cape, a more localized story of success has unfolded with Cape Town Air Access (CTAA).
This public-private initiative was born out of crisis in 2015, when South African Airways cut its direct London–Cape Town flight and international connectivity to Cape Town hung in the balance; many feared the city would slip off the global aviation map.
Rather than accept decline, the Western Cape’s government, tourism board, and business community launched the Cape Town Air Access initiative – a data-driven, multi-agency partnership to attract airlines, boost routes, and increase tourism and cargo flows.
The initiative functioned as a one-stop route development team, effectively doing what a forward-looking national aviation policy should do, but at a city level. The payoff has been significant.
Over just a few years, Cape Town secured new non-stop flights to hubs in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. By the end of 2019, the initiative had resulted in 18 new routes and 23 expanded connections, contributing an estimated R5.3 billion in direct tourism spending and creating more than 10,000 jobs.
A key to this success was data-driven market research used to identify high-potential routes, paired with financial incentives such as subsidies on landing fees. This pragmatic approach not only attracted airlines but also boosted air cargo by 52% in 2017, enhancing trade and export opportunities for local businesses.
This wasn’t luck. It was strategy. They used market research to identify demand. They offered landing fee subsidies.
They collaborated across tourism, trade, and transport. And critically, they embraced the fifth freedom rights that allowed non-South African airlines to serve the city and connect it to regional markets.
The result? A connected Cape Town that became a preferred regional headquarters for multinationals and a springboard for tourism, tech, and trade.
Cape Town’s experience proved that demand grows with connectivity, as many of the passengers on the new routes were first-time visitors who would not have traveled without a convenient flight option.
Essentially, if you establish the route in African aviation, the passengers (and economic benefits) follow. CTAA’s success, achieved in the absence of full national open skies, hints at what could be achieved if our leaders were serious.
When the Sky’s Not the Limit but a Strategy: Morocco’s Playbook
Then there is Morocco’s bold experiment with opening the skies. In 2006, Morocco became the first African country to sign an Open Skies agreement with the European Union, essentially throwing open its aviation market to competition from Europe.
Skeptics feared the onslaught of European low-cost carriers would kill the national airline, Royal Air Maroc (RAM); it did not.
Air traffic soared. In the four years after the deal, passenger volumes between Morocco and Europe grew about 18% annually, injecting an extra €1 billion into Morocco’s GDP by 2009 and creating an estimated 24,000 jobs.
Tourist arrivals climbed steadily at ~6% per year. Average fares dropped by roughly 7%, saving consumers money. Significantly, Royal Air Maroc adapted and held its own – it remains the largest player in the market, even as it now competes with a dozen European carriers (including Ryanair and easyJet) that operate frequent-to-daily flights into Morocco.
The Open Skies deal also catalyzed new local ventures, like the launch of Air Arabia Maroc in 2009 to tap into the budget travel segment.
For all its success, Morocco’s story is also a cautionary tale.
Liberalization is not a one-and-done event; it requires continuous management. After the initial honeymoon of booming traffic, Moroccan and EU officials have had to navigate ongoing negotiations, from security standards to airport slot allocations, to fine-tune the agreement as market conditions evolved.
RAM CEO, Abdelhamid Addou, in November 2024, highlighted the seemingly lopsided nature of the agreement: European airlines gained unfettered access to Moroccan and African markets, but when Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc sought to expand into Europe, “open skies and closed airports” became their reality.
According to Addou, securing landing slots at major European airports is a constant struggle, as airlines like RAM face immense challenges in gaining equal access to European hubs. This asymmetry in access poses a significant obstacle, and for those looking to replicate similar models, this real-time example serves as a crucial point of caution.
In essence, Morocco learned that opening the skies is a journey of constant adjustment. Still, the overarching lesson is clear: thoughtful liberalization and competitive readiness can yield dramatic benefits for African aviation. Morocco quite literally opened the door for its aviation sector, and the country is reaping the rewards in jobs, GDP, and global connectivity.
These case studies – an agile pan-African airline, a subnational route initiative, and a country embracing open skies – dispel the myth that African aviation cannot be easier to navigate or globally competitive. On the contrary, they show that when African leaders remove the shackles and embrace competition and collaboration, the industry can thrive.
Fortunately, the economic case for action has been made in Africa’s own context. After years of advocacy, there is now hard African data to persuade the holdouts. An African Union study in 2022 projected that full implementation of SAATM (i.e. truly open African skies) would boost the continent’s GDP by $4.2 billion, create almost 600,000 new jobs, and reduce average airfares by 27%.
IATA’s earlier analysis similarly found that just a subset of 12 African countries opening up would add $1.3 billion to GDP and 155,000 jobs. We have already seen real-world validation: when Kenya and South Africa liberalized flights between them in the early 2000s, passenger traffic surged 69%.
When South Africa allowed low-cost carriers into the South Africa–Zambia market, fares also fell and traffic jumped 38%. These are huge gains that directly translate into economic activity on the ground. The demand to travel within Africa is there, suppressed by decades of constraints. Unleashing that demand is akin to opening the floodgates of opportunity.
The Case for Open Skies: Global Lessons for Africa
Africa is not the first region to grapple with aviation protectionism, and it can draw on rich lessons from abroad. Perhaps the most striking example is Europe, which transformed its aviation landscape in the 1990s. Before liberalization, Europe’s skies were dominated by national carriers and restrictive bilateral agreements, not unlike Africa today.
However, three packages of European Union aviation reforms created a single market where any EU airline could fly anywhere in the EU without restrictions. The impact was explosive.
Between 1992 and 2000, the number of routes between EU countries jumped by ~75%, flights increased 88%, and seats more than doubled. Fares fell over 15% on average, in real terms, as competition intensified.
Low-cost carriers like Ryanair and easyJet emerged, bringing air travel to the masses. Importantly, even as some legacy airlines struggled, Europe overall saw net job creation and tourism growth from its open skies. The policy insight is that giving carriers freedom to compete across borders unlocks innovation – new business models, new routes, and lower prices.
Other regions have followed suit. In Southeast Asia, the ten-member ASEAN bloc pursued a phased Open Skies approach. In 2009, ASEAN states first removed capacity limits on flights between their capital cities; by 2011, they agreed (at least on paper) to unlimited third, fourth, and fifth freedom flights among all capitals.
The implementation wasn’t perfect – major players like Indonesia and the Philippines held back on fully opening certain airports – but even partial liberalization yielded gains. Between 2005 and 2012, origin-destination passenger traffic within ASEAN more than doubled (up 116%) as restrictions eased. Low-cost carriers led the charge, growing at 20%+ annually and capturing over 50% of the intra-ASEAN market by the early 2010s.
ASEAN’s experience shows the value of a stepwise liberalization: build confidence with initial opening (e.g. on major routes), then expand to full open skies over time. It also highlights the need for complementary measures, like allowing some foreign ownership and aligning safety standards, to make open skies truly effective across multiple countries.
What all these examples underline is that aviation liberalization tends to be a net positive. When markets open, traffic grows dramatically – often far beyond initial forecasts – and that brings jobs, tourism, trade, and better choices for consumers.
Yes, national airlines may face stiffer competition, but those that innovate survive and even strengthen. Crucially, governments must shift their mindset: treat aviation as a strategic economic asset, not a tool of narrow nationalism.
As one analysis succinctly put it, Africa needs to stop treating its airlines as merely extensions of foreign policy and start seeing air connectivity as essential infrastructure for development.
The evidence is overwhelming that open skies could be a game-changer for Africa. In a decade, Africa should aim to have a fully operational single aviation market that is integrated into the global network on its own terms, with African carriers playing prominent roles.
In this envisioned future, an African traveler might seamlessly fly from, say, Lagos to Lusaka on a regional airline without needing to spend the equivalent of two-thirds of their GDP per capita, and then onward to Bangkok or London via a partnership – all under an umbrella of competitive fares, safety, and choice that equal the world’s best.
Conclusion: Cleared for Take-Off
African aviation stands at a crossroads. The problems – stagnant connectivity, high costs, struggling airlines – are well documented, but so are the solutions.
The experiences of Ethiopian Airlines, Cape Town’s Air Access initiative, and Morocco’s open skies leap show that when Africa embraces openness and collaboration, the results are transformative. The policy frameworks to enable change (from Yamoussoukro to SAATM) are already in place; it is the implementation that has lagged.
By learning from global peers and from its own pioneers, African countries can craft a tailored path to liberalization that addresses legitimate concerns while unleashing the tremendous pent-up demand for air travel.
The benefits will extend far beyond the aviation sector, fostering African integration, economic resilience, and global competitiveness.
The vision of a connected Africa, where an entrepreneur in Accra can easily hop a flight to meet a client in Lusaka, or a family in Dakar can vacation affordably in Cape Town, is within reach.
Achieving it will require bold leadership, relentless technical work, and yes, tough negotiations to reconcile interests. But every indicator – economic models, case studies, international precedents – signals that the payoff is worth it.
It’s time to dispel the aviation blues with the clear skies of reform. Africa’s people, businesses, and ideas are ready to take wing.
The remaining question is: can African policymakers overcome the political hurdles to make continental open skies a reality? That’s the real challenge.
Marie-Noelle Nwokolo is a researcher and policy advisor focused on growth and economic development. She is an associate researcher of the Brenthurst Foundation.
