New Entrants

Late September, the Republic of Congo floated a new national flag carrier under the guidance of Lufthansa Consulting. The President of the ECOWAS Commission also recently called for a regional airline in the West African region. Air Senegal, after many years of partnership with Royal Air Maroc, finally packed up and has been replaced by Senegal Airlines. If the truth must be told most countries in Africa would like to own their own national flag carriers, and successful airlines like ET and KQ. However, that is far from the reality.

Air Transport Is Critical

The relevance of air transport to economies, especially in Africa is well documented. They stretch from the need to provide social and economic linkages between peoples of the same country, to linking the peoples so reached with their neighbours in contiguous territories and beyond.

This need for linkages is made more pressing in Africa by the obvious case of poor road network and general weak transport infrastructure. Aside from these, air transportation is seen as a national pride when the flag of nations are seen in major capitals around the world.

However, more than a few of these small communities are not able to profitably sustain air transport on a commercial scale but may need the air services owing to reasons of geography, etcetera. Obviously, private commercial airlines do not see the need to provide air services to those areas where they do not have potentials for good returns on investment. Meanwhile, for several reasons including political and economic, the national governments would like to reach these communities with development and assist them integrate into the mainstream economy. Some of these reasons have led several governments in time past to set up national flag carriers to ensure that the lack of the all-important air services do not asphyxiate economic and social development and national integration.

The weak aviation manpower position of many countries in Africa has also been explained by some as the direct upshot of lack of national carriers. These reasons continue to inform the position of many advocates for the establishment of national carriers by countries.

The Death Of National Carriers

In the 1970s and 80s, African skies were awash with the likes of Air Afrique, Nigerian Airways, Ghana Airways, Air Tanzania, Kenya Airways, etcetera. However, by the 90s and early 2000, these airlines were comatose owing to corruption, government intervention and poor management. They were in huge debts and depended on government handouts to pay salaries and to maintain their fleets. They became, as it were, drains on government revenue and instead of promoting the brand of their countries they had become embarrassments to their governments. These years, also coincided with the great wave of privatization and commercialization, which blew away many airlines. Some like Kenya Airways were privatized and handed over to the private sector to run; others like Air Afrique and Nigeria Airways were liquidated while others like South African Airways, Air Mauritius continued to run, at constant financial loss to their owners.

Another Model

Today, no doubt, the need for air transport services in Africa has not abated but may not only be solved through the instrumentality of national carriers. The conditions stated above remain true of many an African country. But economically, the situation cannot be said to be the same. While many African countries continue to grow at record GDP levels the available funding to finance such huge airline projects do not exist. Where the resources exist, insatiable social and health sectors have imposed critical limits to funds that could be available to "non-essential" sectors, including aviation. For instance, in Nigeria the total budget of the aviation industry in 2011 was put at N28 billion (or roughly USD 182 million). In Kenya, the expenditure for transport for the same period is USD 109 million. These figures when related to the market price of a narrow body Airbus of Boeing aircraft speak for themselves.

The question then is: why have the North African carriers continued to exist under government ownership? The answer must obviously relate to the business models of the airlines and their governments. But a look at these markets show that the airlines are essentially allowed to exist as adjuncts of virile tourism sectors which is not the case for many in the West and Central parts of Africa. Ditto for Air Mauritius and Air Madagascar.

The era of national carrier seems definitely over. The resources cannot sustain them. Even in Europe, the classical example is Alitalia. Yet the need to reach many unreached people in Africa remains. Therefore, what is required is not the classic national carrier but flag carriers. As Mr. Gbenga Olowo, President of Sabre in Nigeria has argued the case is for private sector flag carriers supported by government providing enabling environment for them to thrive. The maladies that killed many national carriers in Africa are still with us. The scarce resources do not just support another season of experimentation with national carriers.