With so many African countries now experiencing the proverbial "economic boom" with annual economic growth rates nearing double figures - among them
Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria - it stands to reason that the aviation industry should play a vital part in this African Rejuvenation of sorts.
In an interview media briefing at the South Africa's National Airways Corporation’s 43 Air School’s Port Alfred campus, Boeing Commercial Airplanes international sales director Miguel Santos said Africa would need more than 800 new aircraft over the next 20 years and between 14 000 and 20 000 new trained pilots, whilst the demand for technicians/maintenance personnel for Africa and the Middle East is
projected to be around 59,500.
With the gradual embrace by the travelling public of Low Cost Carriers in countries like South Africa, Kenya, Angola, and Ghana, the expansion of larger carriers like Ethiopian, South African, Kenyan and Egyptian Airlines into other continents, and the dramatic inroads made into neglected markets like Zimbabwe and Somalia by global players like Emirates and Turkish, is this often neglected part of the world finally seeing the first buds of a economic renaissance? Or will the added attention to air travel only serve to neglect other traditional forms of transport, like rail and road transport, which could in turn have a negative impact? Only time can tell..
