Africa-Press – Botswana. The effective implementation score of Botswana in aviation is 85.6 per cent.
The score, which is an improvement from the 40 per cent two years, means Air Botswana is one of the safest airlines in the market, says Minister of Transport and Public Works, Honourable Mr Eric Molale.
Minister Molale said this during the launch of the new Embraer E175, named Kalahari at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport on Friday.
He urged Air Botswana chief executive officer and staff members to keep going higher, citing that only four African countries being Botswana, Ethiopia, South Africa and Ghana managed to reach the effective implementation score of 85 per cent.
He said this marked a transformation journey in the aviation space, adding that recently the aviation authority launched a project as part of envisaged change.
He said the project was named the Botswana Air Access Project, and it involved the tourism organisation, Botswana Investment and Trade Centre, HATAB, Business of Botswana and Travel Agents Association of Botswana which would form synergies needed to market Botswana as a destination of choice.
Mr Molale said early this year, they had to convince the minister of finance for P600 million for Air Botswana fleet.
“This was in response to the minister of finance’s insistence that we must privatise Air Botswana. And I said to her, with the current status of Air Botswana, it won’t be privatised, it will be sold to defray expenses,” he said.
Mr Molale said with the current status there was a need to restructure the airline so that it commanded value when privatised.
He said the recent introduction of local snacks including Morula juice, Baobab juice and other tasty local snacks on Air Botswana travel packages was impressive.
Mr Molale said they were getting there with the transformation journey, citing value chain development among producers of the juices, and snacks, and many other things including advertising spaces for revenue generation on the seats.
Meanwhile, Airline Association of Southern Africa, Chief Executive Officer, Mr Aaron Munetsi, said globally the travel market grew by 10.1 per cent up to July 2024; a good growth bearing in mind COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Munetsi said most markets began to show a deceleration because there was revenge travel, mentioning that after one or two years of being locked up, people were eager to travel.
Africa to Asia route map, Africa to Asia, grew by 38 per cent and in July, the same route, Africa to Asia, grew by 28.9 per cent.
He said this was encouraging, but not satisfactory, adding that Africa can do better. In July 2024, the load factor, that means the number of seats taken on an aircraft, stood at 74 per cent and the lowest in the world.
He said with the second largest population of 20 per cent in the world, other continents, other airlines, other countries were benefiting from our population dividend.
“This has to stop,” he said. “In January, 2018 the African Union commenced the single Africa air transport market which specifically suggests the African airspace must be open to African airlines and there should be no restriction that’s why we can see Air Botswana doing what they are doing.”
Mr Munetsi said since 2018 to date, 37 African countries had signed up which was a good scorecard, but not a proud scorecard.
Out of 55 countries, he said, only 37 had signed up and the fundamental question was, where were the other 18?
For More News And Analysis About Botswana Follow Africa-Press
