LAGOS – Airfares are expensive within the African countries because of the exorbitant charges the continent’s governments impose on airlines, including the payment of $2,000 as overflight fees.
Apart from this, poor infrastructure, high taxes and levies, traffic rights and non-implementation of Single Africa Air Transport Market (SAATM), among others contribute hugely to high airfares within the continent.
Mr. Esayas WoldeMaria, the Managing Director, ASKY Airlines disclosed this on Friday in his presentation at the 7th Accraweizo conference, held in Accra, Ghana.
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According to WoldeMaria, airlines flying across any African country, pays about $2,000 to each country it flies it’s airspace despite the many treaties entered into by African governments to foster collaboration.
He also decried that one-third of air tickets go into taxes in Africa, yet the charges are not ploughed back into the system.
According to him, to ensure cheaper airfares on the continent and enhance air movement within Africa, especially West Africa, all the barriers militating seamless movement of people should be eliminated by the continent’s governments.
He further called on African governments to emulate its European counterparts by opening its borders more to the travelling public.
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He said: “Once you buy an air ticket in Africa, one-third of it goes into taxes, yet all the money collected doesn’t go back to infrastructure development, rather, it is either syphoned or in some cases diverted by the governments.
“You pay about $2,000 for overflying any African country. No wonder air tickets are expensive within the continent. However, road transport is more than 200 per cent more exposed to accidents than air. Each African government should be purposeful about growth. Airlines’ profit margin is very narrow.”
Earlier in his welcome address, Mr. Ikechi Uko, the organiser of Accraweizo in collaboration with Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), said that the intent of the organisers was to create a domestic market within the West African region.
Uko explained that the major challenge of seamless travel within West Africa lied with land borders.
He said: “The problem is at the land borders. A lot of people are not privileged to fly like us, so they have to go out of their way to travel by road. So, this year, we did another collaboration with GTA. It brought the president of the tour operators union and some top operators to join us in Cotonou. And we did the four days road trip together.
“But, it was an exciting experience having to travel with Ghanaian tour operators, Nigerian tour operators, Benin tour operators and Togo tour operators. And we found out that we are neighbours to Togo, but most Ghanaians don’t know Togo. And we discovered other borders, that Aflao is not the only border between Togo and Ghana.”
He added that the concept of Accraweizo was to change West African citizens’ mindsets about collaboration and competition.
