EAC Plans to Bring down Cost of Air Travel

(Busiweek)--The East African Community (EAC) air transport sub committee is developing competition rules for the aviation industry. The move is aimed at helping reduce the costs of air travel within East Africa. Air travel in East Africa is very high and at one point the Entebbe-Nairobi flight operated by Kenya Airways was the most expensive 55-minute flight in the whole world.

In 2006, the East African Business Council (EABC) in a memorandum forwarded to Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki, who at the time held the chairmanship of the EAC, called for harmonisation of air travel in the region.

“EAC should also harmonise the cost of air travel in the region. At the moment, traveling within the region is prohibitive and almost comparable to traveling overseas,” the memorandum said.
A consultative meeting on the facilitation of air transport in East Africa held a week ago in Jinja, in eastern Uganda, heard that the EAC secretariat is drawing up recommendations on competition rules and a monitoring body.

The EAC secretariat is expected to provide a progress report at the next meeting of ministers sometime this year.

There have been positive developments in the air transport sub-sector on the EAC front including the harmonization of safety and security regulations, establishment of the East African Civil Aviation Safety and Oversight Agency as well as the Unified Upper Airspace Control Centre.

At an EAC ministerial retreat on infrastructure in Kampala in April, it came out clearly that there is a need to focus on the revival of the air transport training institutions formerly owned by the defunct EAC to help capacity development in the sector.

President Yoweri Museveni, the chairman of the EAC said that the training of pilots and aircraft engineers, which was previously undertaken by the Soroti Flying School, was now a major foreign-exchange drain for the region because most of the training is conducted outside East Africa.
Museveni said the high cost of air transport was an area of concern.

“The region has substantially liberalised air transport, through the removal of capacity and frequency restrictions, [but] air fares and cargo rates in the region have remained high,” Museveni said. “Something should be done jointly to ensure that air travel becomes affordable for intra-regional travel and air freighting.”

The Jinja meeting also looked at the marketing and development of more interstate airline networks whereby civil aviation and airports authorities were urged to consider provision of dedicated facilities to handle low cost carriers.

Members reported that the EAC air transport sub-committee is working on the full implementation of the programme within the region and that a draft document is in place awaiting finalisation after consultation with stakeholders.

The Tanzania delegation reported that the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) terminal building was earmarked for low cost carriers and general aviation.

In Uganda, that has been taken care of with the recently expanded Entebbe airport while Kenya will also take care of that issue when ongoing expansion is completed at Jomo Kenyatta airport.

The meeting also heard that no progress has been made on in all three countries on popularizing the East African passports as immigration bosses are yet to meet to discuss the issue.

Little or no progress has been made on clearance to operate non-scheduled ad-hoc international flights. Such flights are usually emergencies and could range from evacuations to impromptu calls in case of accidents amoung other issues.

Members are yet to make progress on earlier calls to follow up the matter regarding harmonization of fees/charges with heads of civil aviations.

On the issue of operation of free airport zones, Kenya reported that matter was being considered under Kenya’s Vision 2030. In Tanzania, implementation of free airport zones is included in the JNIA master plan while no progress was reported by Uganda.

The airport and civil aviation authorities are supposed to study the East African Community Customs Management Act 2004 with a view to establishing airport free zones.

On pilferage at airports, Kenya reported that a special pilferage unit has been established for combating the vice at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where the practice is predominant.
The unit comprises KAA security, Kenya Police unit and airline security representatives. However the practice is on the decline in Kenyan airports.

Uganda reported that Entebbe still experiences cases of alleged pilferage especially on Kenya Airways flights. A form for reporting/categorizing pilferage has been designed and is attached for noting and improvement by members of the committee.

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