afraa

"To be the leader and catalyst for the growth of a globally competitive and integrated African airline industry"

Mission :

"To serve African airlines, promote and protect their common interests"

Objectives :

The recast AFRAA objectives are as follows :

To facilitate the establishment of industry best practices in safety and security
To be the repository of data and its analysis focusing on key issues in the aviation sector.
To provide a platform for consensus building among member carriers.
To facilitate joint projects between member airlines aimed at reducing their costs and increasing their revenues.
To actively contribute in human capital development.
To interact with the regulatory bodies to support and protect the common interests of all African airlines.
To provide forums for members and industry partners to enhance their knowledge base and enhance mutual cooperation.
To facilitate the development of environmental policies in keeping with industry best practices
To reflect the positive image of the African airlines worldwide.

rom Prof Wolfgang Thome

Under the auspices of Afraa (African Airlines Association) experts for the aviation safety enhancement team (ASET) met in Nairobi and discussed common problems and objectives to improve the safety in African skies. While the year 2004 proved to be on of the safest years in air travel for the last 60 or so years, African aviation has been struggling with ageing aircraft fleets. While some airlines, notably Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian and a few others have been embarking on a fleet renewal and modernization exercises, many of the continent's airlines still fly aircraft of earlier generations, which are not only expensive to operate in view of the high fuel consumption but also very expensive to maintain. East Africa has already established a joint EAC Civil Aviation Safety Project and is moving towards a common aviation policy and standards for the entire EAC, ahead of re-introducing a single sky policy later in the year. Compliance with ICAO standards and regular audits have helped to address some of the issues and moving towards Category One status by the US FAA has also assisted in bringing African aviation into the 21st century. In an important step Afraa also called for a political de-linking of CAA's all over Africa and establish them as independent regulators.

Background: The formation of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) was the result of historic developments and economic imperatives. In the early 1960s, a great number of African States acceded to independence and created their own national airlines. Most of these airlines became members of the International Air Transport Association.

AFRAA has its conceptual beginning in 1963, when a number of African airlines, taking the opportunity provided by the IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM) began holding consultation meetings prior to the IATA AGMs to discuss matters of interest to African airlines and to adopt common positions. This was the first step towards the creation of AFRAA. AFRAA is an organization open to air carriers owned by African states and/or to carriers by citizens of such states. At of December 2004, AFRAA had 44 members