Joined: 05 Oct 2005
Posts: 315
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When Libya’s new carrier, Afriqiyah Airlines, came into being only a few years ago, nobody ever gave it a chance of survival in the face of the high mortality rate of airlines in the continent, and especially considering the circumstance in which the airline evolved - that of the economic sanctions imposed on Libya by the U.S. and its western allies until very recently.
However, the airline is gradually joining the big league of African big carriers such as South African Airways (SAA), Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways, what with the phenomenal growth the airline has achieved in the few years of its existence. Observers believe that Afriqiyah Airline’s phenomenal growth couldn’t have been possible without the ability of its management team, led by its chairman, Capt. Sabri Abdallah, who had been able to play the politics of aviation both at the continental and global level. It should be noted that Capt. Abdallah’s skills at marrying aviation politics with economics is, for many, the reason he was given a look-in in the executive council of African Airlines Association (AFRAA), where he is currently honning his skills in chairmanship capacity. As an airline manager who believes in the leverage government’s subsidy of airlines could bring into airline’s operations, especially in the face of competition from major airlines of the world, operators in the continent have been looking up to him to use AFRAA platform to prevail on and convince African governments to give their airlines, publicly or privately-owned, the necessary fillip, financial or otherwise, to enable them wade the turbulent waters of competition effectively. It is precisely what he had done with Afriqiyah Airways to make the airline one of Africa’s fastest growing airlines. “Yes, Afriqiyah Airways is a company that was set up by the Libyan government. The govern-ment has set up this airline to serve many purposes. It is a subsidised company until it is strong enough to achieve its goals. We are not ashamed of it; many airlines you see today speak loudly of their not being subsidised, though they have been subsidised for so many years. That is for them to be stable even though some of them are not totally stable. You see what the problems are in Alitalia, Olympic, Swiss Air. All these have been subsidised all the time for many years and even today, they cannot stand alone,” the AFRAA boss said of the importance of subsidy for airlines. It is his opinion that African airlines have the requisite wherewithal to play themselves out of recent European Union’s (EU) derisive classification of African airlines as unsafe carriers, good for black-listing in its books. For him, this shabby treatment is totally unacceptable to AFRAA. He stated AFRAA’s position in a recent interview, thus: “I think Africans are so in love with aviation and flying that everybody is trying to have a company. You see, I have recorded more than thirty companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that shows you the size of operations they have in Africa that makes some airlines not to have much to spend on set standards. “It also shows you the passion or the need for air transport in Africa. So, what you see is the outcome of that. But, I know for AFRAA members, their safety standards are world standards. I think many states are capable of improving safety standards of their airlines. The blacklisting happened when we had fatal accidents a short time ago, but I think the safety records will not see African airlines facing suspensions or blacklist.” Since the former Afriqiyah’s boss has taken the airline to its present enviable heights in so short a time, airline operators and air passengers in the continent are hopeful that he would as well translate such efficiency to the stable of AFRAA, in such as way that the airlines can run safe and efficient operations Story by Kenneth Ehigiator |
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