IKECHI UKO
Now, about Open Sky, I have a group that we call Team Africa. And Team Africa is built on the premise that there are 1.2 billion Africans, we get only 56 million tourists. France has a population of less than 80 million and they get 76 to 78 million tourists. France as a country gets more tourists than the whole of Africa put together. If we can get only 10 per cent of Africans or 20 per cent of Africans to travel within Africa, that is a 100 million people and that is a boom for all African airlines, all African hotels and all African countries. We don’t need grants any more. And because of the way travel is shaped, 80 per cent of the carriage of passengers in Africa is done by non-African carriers. If we now get more Africans to travel within Africa who will benefit? African carriers will benefit because these foreign carriers don’t fly there. So it is in the interest of Africa that we begin to grow travel within Africa. And what are the obstacles to this dream of getting more Africans to travel within Africa? The first is air access; the second is visa.
So Team Africa’s job is to first create interest in Africans wanting to know other African countries. We are doing 21 wonders of Africa for that. After creating the interest they will want to go, but how do they go when there is no air access? And if they now find a way to go, they don’t have visa, so could we make an Africa where it is easy for people to move around within Africa. So we can get a 100 million Africans moving within Africa. If we do this 100 million visitors within Africa Kenya Airways will be profitable, South Africa Airways will be profitable, Ethiopian Airlines will be more profitable, Arik Air will be profitable, Aero will be profitable, Asky will be profitable because they will be carrying Africans. So it is simple logic, which nobody sees. So, open skies is one of the solutions to Africa’s problems. Now Nigerians don’t want open skies, some Nigerian airlines, but they want open skies in West Africa so that Nigerian airlines can takeover. But these West African countries also don’t want open skies, so my question is since you have protected your environment for so long how many of your airlines have become big carriers? None. If you do a correlation between closed aviation environment and the growth of local airlines there, you will see that it is a negative relationship.
The more you close the less you have ability to grow your airlines. And what do you now have? You have more foreign carriers carrying more of your people out. So I could name all the West African countries that have tried to close their environment, you will find out that they are dominated by foreign carriers. The fact is that Nigeria has not appropriated open skies, do we have more Nigerian airlines carrying people out? No. If you check the graph, some years ago we had 80 per cent of the passengers carried by Nigerian airline and you could see that as at today we have less than two per cent. So the more we have closed our environment the less we have developed ability to compete and carry on. So in whose interest are you closing it? So anybody who is arguing against open skies has refused to see reality, he is wishing for his grandchild to raise the airline that might compete with Emirates and by then it will be something else.
The reality of the matter today is that open skies among African carriers will help the carriers, will help Africa, will help those countries. If we are able now to have open skies then the next problem is easier to solve. The next problem is the African passport, open visa. Because those airlines will put pressure on their government, like Ethiopian Airline is doing to their government to make visa available to their passengers. Kenyan Airways has an office in the embassy in Lagos, so if you buy the ticket you get a visa and now it is visa on arrive in Kenya. For Rwanda, everybody has visa on arrival. Has the Rwandan economy been overtaken by foreigners? No. Has RwandAir and Rwanda benefitted from that? Yes. So what is the fear? Rwanda gives fifth freedom to anybody who applies. What is the fear of Africans in opening up their skies and opening up their borders? Because there is no statistics, no research anywhere that supports the stupid behaviour in restricting ourselves which we are indulging in now.
So part of what we try to do in the next two years in Team Africa is to get Africans to see reality. When Nigeria opened up relationship with South Africa it benefitted the two economies and Nigerian economy actually overtook South Africa because of South Africa investment in Nigeria. So if we had shut ourselves out South Africa won’t grow, Nigeria won’t grow. But today both countries have benefitted from that relationship. So I don’t know where the people who are against open skies come from; maybe Mars. You check statistic, you check history and you check everything and nothing argues in favour of closing your environment.