Gilbert Kibe is the director general at the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. PHOTO | NMG
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority director general Gilbert Kibe spoke to The EastAfrican on the Open Skies initiative and why the region stands a better chance of progress.
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What is the latest on the Single African Air Transport Market programme?
It
is operational and states like Togo are already operationalising it,
through agreements with other countries in West Africa, where
cross-border flights are now treated as domestic flights.
East
Africa is yet to operationalise it because some member states have not
yet signed the agreement — with only Kenya and Rwanda having done so.
We
aim to domesticate African prices so that we can lower costs of
operations, which will then translate into lower ticket prices.
How will the Open Skies programme work for East Africa?
The
EAC will have to discuss a multilateral air service agreement. This
means we will have a regional airspace operated by airlines of the
member states as domestic flights. This will see a reduction in taxes,
with the airport passenger service charge being the first to come down
to about 10 per cent of ticket value.
Other shared
costs by airlines will also be reduced, translating into a reduction in
the air ticket costs. I would like to see a return air ticket of $100
from Nairobi to Entebbe or Juba or Bujumbura.
What is standing in the way of an EAC single domestic market?
The
Single African Air Transport Market has to work smoothly through the
regional blocs — the EAC, the Southern African Development Community and
the Economic Community of West African States. There has been progress,
but not as quickly as we would like to see, mostly because we are not
all signatories to the open skies initiative.
There are
still terms and conditions that we need to develop between the
countries on its local implementation. There are also international
carriers competing against our carriers. There is need for terms and
conditions on how they operate within the joint EAC airspace.
A
multilateral air service agreement for international carriers would
need to be agreed on by the region so that we can sit with the likes of
Emirates and Etihad and discuss their frequencies in our airspace. This
will open the incentives they can offer our airlines in their space.
What is slowing down the process?
States
are looking to their own interests, with some seeking favourable terms.
The sticking issue is agreeing on these terms and conditions allowing
us to operate an Open Skies policy. In trying to achieve the open skies
within EAC, states have come up with different requirements.
For
instance, Kenya said that for a carrier to benefit, its local ownership
must be above 51 per cent, but the other countries did not mind the
shareholding condition and instead sought operational control by their
civil aviation authorities. This was one of the disagreements.
Kenya
climbed down on this position and agreed to a 35 per cent shareholding
but some countries that are now starting or reviving national airlines
changed tack again and pushed for both majority local ownership and
effective control of operations.
The second challenge
has been the ratification of some bilateral air agreements that needs to
be done by regional countries to ensure fully open domestic skies.
What are the likely benefit from the Category One status accorded Kenya by the US?
The
first benefit is that our carriers will be able to fly to the United
States. And this is not just for Kenya Airways but for any other
carriers. This is important to Kenya because JKIA can now become an
African hub. Over 60 per cent of the passenger traffic on that route
will be Americans travelling to Africa, making Nairobi a perfect hub for
American investment.
How has KCAA managed the increased air traffic to Nairobi?
We
redesigned our airspace using a new masterplan. We increased capacity
on the busiest routes. For instance, Nairobi-Mombasa is the busiest
route, with 20 flights a day.
Initially, we will use
one track but different altitudes for aircraft, but we have created
parallel airways on this route. This means that we can now have multiple
aircraft using these routes simultaneously, going in either direction,
thereby increasing efficiency in managing airspace and in airline
operations.
We have also done this on the
Nairobi-Kisumu and Eldoret routes and are in the process of doing a
similar intervention in Wajir to cater for the increased number of
flights to Somalia.
We have also invested in new
equipment for communication, navigation and surveillance. We have
invested in a controller-pilot datalink, which is a text-based system
that allows us to give instructions to pilots via text messages.
This
is mostly used in oceanic airspace, which we see being implemented by
Middle Eastern airlines that enter our airspace from Mogadishu and
headed to Southern Africa.
We also introduced automatic
dependent surveillance communication and aeronautical message handling
systems, which is high data communication between states. It allows us
to share flight plans with countries that airplanes will be traversing
as they head to their destinations.
We have also
introduced a performance-based navigation system to assist airlines to
map shorter routes for their destination to improve efficiency.
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