The Managing Director of ASKY Airlines, Mr. Esayas WoldeMaria has said that the major reason Africans pay high airfares is because governments charge exorbitant taxes on air travel.
Incidentally, despite the huge taxes, governments are reluctant to modernize airport and travel infrastructure, hence the low development of air transport in most part of Africa.
Mr. WoldeMaria said airlines are charged as much as $2000 on over fliers in a region where the airspace is supposed to be open for member state airlines.
He lamented that the continent is known for poor airport infrastructure, high taxes and levies, constricting traffic rights and non-implementation of Single Africa Air Transport Market (SAATM), among others, which contribute hugely to high airfares within the continent.
WoldeMaria disclosed this during his presentation at the 7th Accraweizo conference, held in Accra, Ghana, adding that states charge such high taxes despite the many treaties entered into by African governments to foster collaboration, including Yamoussoukro Decision, which is supposed to open the region’s airspace for member airlines.
He also frowned at the fact that about 35 per cent of cost of air ticket in Africa constitute of taxes and charges; yet the revenues so earned are not ploughed back to further grow the system.
According to him, to ensure cheaper airfares on the continent and enhance air movement within Africa, especially West Africa, all the barriers militating seamless movement of people should be eliminated by the continent’s governments.
He said that to improve air travel in Africa, African governments should emulate its European counterparts by opening its borders more to the traveling public.
“Once you buy an air ticket in Africa, one-third of it goes into taxes, yet all the money collected doesn’t go back to infrastructure development, rather, it is either syphoned or in some cases diverted by the governments.
“You pay about $2,000 for overflying any African country. No wonder air tickets are expensive within the continent. However, road transport is more than 200 per cent more exposed to accidents than air. Each African government should be purposeful about growth. Airlines’ profit margin is very narrow.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the organiser of Accraweizo in collaboration with Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Mr. Ikechi Uko, said that the intent of the organisers was to create a domestic market within the West African region.
Uko explained that the major challenge of seamless travel within West Africa lies with land borders.
He said: “There is problem at the land borders. A lot of people are not privileged to fly like us, so they have to go out of their way to travel by road. So, this year, we did another collaboration with GTA. It brought the president of the tour operators union and some top operators to join us in Cotonou. And we did the four days road trip together.
“But, it was an exciting experience having to travel with Ghanaian tour operators, Nigerian tour operators, Benin tour operators and Togo tour operators. And we found out that we are neighbours to Togo, but most Ghanaians don’t know Togo. And we discovered other borders, that Aflao is not the only border between Togo and Ghana.”
He added that the concept of Accraweizo was to change West African citizens’ mindsets about collaboration and competition in addition to encouraging seamless travel by road across Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.
