Kenya Airways and SAA chiefs see partnership as key to unlocking African growth

The respective CEs of Kenya Airways and South African Airways see the chance to unlock the potential of greater air connectivity within Africa as the reward as they work on developing plans for a pan-African operation. The two airlines teamed up in November last year to sign a strategic partnership agreement which envisaged the creation of a pan-African airline group, potentially by 2023. That would likely involve a holding company structure similar to that of European airline groups like IAG, a move recently adopted by Latin America carrier Avianca in linking up with Gol through the planned Abra Group. ”This is my pet subject and it is my pet subject because I truly believe it is going to be a game-changer in the African aviation space,” Kenya Airways chief executive Allan Kilavuka says, when asked about partnership plans. ”We are trying to push back on fragmentation of aviation in Africa, because it is very, very fragmented, and the market right now is quite small. It is 2% of aviation and if you compare that to the population that is Africa – which is about 16% – it is disproportionate. How do you grow from 2% to closer to 16%? You do that by making the airlines more viable. And how do you make them more viable? You make them scalable, and that is why we are talking to South African, and actually quite frankly, others as well.” His counterpart at SAA, interim CE John Lamola, similarly enthuses about the potential such a partnership could have. He also highlights the relatively small size of the African aviation market, the lack of connectivity and infrastructure challenges in certain countries. ”Within that context we have partnered with Kenya as a first start,” he says. ”We have left it to the politicians to talk about the Yamoussoukro Declaration, they have all these things in their political control, and after all these years, we are still not there.”<br/>