Does a Pan Africa air trip really take off? |Kenya

Hello, welcome to Long Wave. This week I'll be digging into one of my biggest travel bug bears. Why is it so patrolable, expensive, time-consuming and exhausting to travel within Africa?

Aviation challenges in Africa

Below are some of the routes available for travel within Africa: Buckle up. The shortest option from Johannesburg to Dakar is 14.5 hours with two stops passing through Gabon and Togo. If you prefer fewer stops, you have the option to leave Africa for good. It takes 26 hours and 5 minutes to fly to Istanbul and return to the continent. It's a 9-hour flight from Port Sudan to Kampala, just 1,860 miles away, via Addis Ababa. And if you want to jump from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa, you'll end up in Paris or Amsterdam, which I did. It will be cheaper. The minimum amount you pay for a trip like this is a return of USD 1,000.

There are very few careers, there are no cheap careers

Part of the problem is that there are only a few large airlines on the continent. Kenya Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines and Egyptian Airlines control Africa, and travelers are subject to prices that can be set to account for the regional concentration of these airlines, direct routes to work, and lack of competition.

As a result, European airlines such as KLM, Air France and Turkish airlines wipe away the rest of the journey, thus throwing travelers from the continent into the hub of connections. I asked Kenya aviation experts why it's so difficult for African Airlines to expand their coverage, and he said: “All planes are not just planes. It's insurance, it's parts, it's maintenance.” On the additional routes, the bars are very high. So, diving from Nairobi to Najamena is great, but there's not enough traffic to justify the cost.

If the price is low, it may be. Air travel in Africa remains a major luxury, with budget airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair not equivalent to low-cost regions. This is the result of everything from lack of demand to the high capital needed to establish a new airline. But here is the chicken and egg element. Pan Africa travel for leisure is considered to be discouraged by the infrastructure needed to support it and the domestic tourism market.

There is another reason to raise deeper questions about how high barriers are between countries that often share borders, language, and even tribal and ethnic relations.

Visa issues

In most parts of Africa, it is a lasting tragedy that it is easier to get admission if you have a Western passport than an African passport. After I received my British passport, my trips within the continent were significantly opened, but producing it for entry rather than Sudanese passport feels like an unpleasant colonial throwback. There are strong regional groups such as the economic communities of West African countries, and Kenya recently declared that it would soon allow visa-free travel for all Africans. This is a bold announcement with no release date.

Other barriers remain, some are high. The historic Free Travel Treaty between Sudan and Egypt was abandoned after the start of the war in Sudan to stop the flow of refugees. This year, the African Union called for accelerated visa-free movements to promote regional integration, and officials condemned persistent travel restrictions for hampering growth and development, as well as the United African goal bloc. Part of that slow growth is the stagnation of the aviation industry. The Freedom Movement said the Vice President of Regional Development “should be the backbone of our integration.”

Air Afrique: Can the fascinating past be a model for the future?

I remember once had a Pan African airline and its posters were part of an iconography of travel on the continent: Air Afrique. Founded in 1961 by a French-speaking country in West Africa and a group of two French airlines, AirAfrique flew to 56 destinations. Of these, 35 were in Africa. As a marker of how much travel is important to promote connection, it became more than just an airline, becoming a cultural powerhouse, establishing the standard of sponsorship and style for film festivals (after the airline was closed, I created an Air Afrique installation this year at Men's Fashion Week in 2022).

After dominating Africa's travel for 40 years, Air Afrique succumbed to bankruptcy in 2002 as a result of the management and challenges of the aviation industry since 9/11. And there are lessons about how economic and political shocks such as recessions and pandemics are difficult to manage, even by the most established players. I understand why airlines and policy makers choose to be conservative.

However, the increase in travel routes in the African and African diaspora is more convincing than ever. Three years ago, Kenya announced that it would partner with South Africa to launch a new Pan-African airline. Nigeria is in discussions to begin direct flights to Jamaica and Barbados.

There is clearly a visa system infrastructure, investment and release needed to turn these ambitions into reality. However, there is a huge disconnect between the growing cultural and political links among many countries between sharing so much that it should ultimately reveal a business case for expanding them through air travel. Think of the uniforms of an airline steward.

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