Aviation Africa 2024, officially opened today at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg. Kicking off with a Key Note address from the South African Minister of transport Barbara Creecy. There are a total of 1300 attendees and thirty-four countries represented at the major African aviation event.
Minister Barbara Creecy, minister of transport, Republic of South Africa focused on the job creation potential of a growing airline industry in her key-note address.
She commented that “Prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, the aviation sector in Africa supported 444,000 direct and six and a half million indirect jobs,” she said. “By further interrogating the aerotropolis concept, and strengthening cooperation amongst African nations, we can enhance our collective air transport network and support greater regional and trade tourism.” She stated.
IATA’s regional report has estimated that over the next 20 years, air transport in South Africa is estimated to grow resulting in an additional 21million passenger journeys by 2037. The Minister says that should this forecast be achieved, it would support upwards of 800 000 direct jobs in South Africa. (With an estimated ratio of 1:8 of direct jobs to indirect jobs in the industry, this would translate into several million jobs supported by the industry).
“For this to happen, we must work together to harmonize regulations, standards, procedures and foster greater collaboration between our aviation authorities”. “This will not only streamline operations, but also create a more cohesive and efficient aviation eco-system across the continent in the aftermath of the pandemic.” The minister concluded.
This year’s summit also features a new innovation with the Insight Theatre introduced. This provides additional scope for panel discussions allowing coverage of many more topics of discussion at the event. Alan Peaford, the conference chairman explained that the Insight Theatre “enables us to dig deeper than some of the top line discussion son the main stage and spark awareness and action for Africa’s aviation future”.
Top Speakers in today’s line-up were Alcinda Pareira, the chair of AFBAA, who discussed why aviation is vital for African prosperity and Sandile Hogana , the chief customer solutions officer of ATNS discussing why air navigation modernisation is essential for Africa and how South Africa is playing a major role in these developments.
Tomorrow (17 September) is the final day and will have two major panel discussions dealing with Pilot training and developing Africa into a pilot training hub and a second dealing with the limitations and solutions for airline financing that will be critical if Africa is to meet its ambitious aeronautical ambitions.
Estimates are that Africa will require at least 15 000 new pilots to be trained in the next 20 years and this is essential to meet growth prospects.
