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Harare Bureau
Air Zimbabwe chief executive Edmund Makona has succeeded Equatorial Congo Airlines CEO Fatima Beyina-Moussa as head of African Airlines Association.

Makona was appointed head of AFRAA at the association’s 47th edition of annual general meeting held in Congo from the 8th to the 10th of this month.

Zimbabwe will host the next annual general assembly of African airlines from November 20 to 22 next year in the resort town of Victoria Falls.

This year’s event, under the patronage of Denis Sassou N’Guesso, President of Congo, was at the Complexe sportif de la Concorde in Kintélé, under the title ‘Open Skies: Growth through Competition and Collaboration’.

Zimbabwe adopted the open skies policy in an effort to attract tourists into the country to drive growth of the tourism industry and ultimately, investment.

The country has targeted to grow the tourism sector into a $5 billion industry by 2020.

The Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Walter Mzembi last year said the government will ensure high connectivity through implementation of the open skies policy to encourage more airlines to ply the Zimbabwe route.

The minister said the open skies policy remains critical for the growth of the industry as connectivity has been one of the challenges to destination Zimbabwe.

“We’re currently having 15 airlines plying the Harare route but at our peak we used to have 48 airlines. The development of infrastructure is vital as we expect more airlines in the near future,” the minister was quoted by the media as saying.

Zimbabwe is working on refurbishing and upgrading airport infrastructure, chief among them the $150 million facelift of Victoria Falls International Airport.

Refurbishment was completed this year at Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport while Harare International Airport had its runway extended.

Plans are afoot to upgrade Kariba and Buffalo Range airports at an estimated combined cost of $150 million to improve connectivity to the tourist resorts.

Thirty Five 35 African airlines attended the AFRAA event, while over 300 took part in discussing strategies to promote implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision, which enshrines free access for air carriers to intra-African connections.

Even though the decision was adopted by 44 countries in November 1999, to date only 11 African countries have committed to implementing it effectively.

At the beginning of the discussion, the leaders of the AFRAA member airlines received valuable support from the Congolese President, Sassou N’Guesso:

“One of the great merits of your association is the awareness that unity is strength and that in your industry salvation lies in the need for solidarity, in sharing essential resources and in vital synergy. Your association pursues ambitions and goals that are in perfect harmony with the African Union,” he said.

The participation of President Sassou N’Guesso at the 47th general assembly of AFRAA is highly symbolic. The Republic of Congo is committed to making air transport one of the major pillars of its economic diversification strategy.

In recent years, Congo has, in fact, provided advanced infrastructure in this regard. Significant investment has been made to build or upgrade nine airports.

Three of these, including Maya-Maya Airport, which boasts ultramodern architecture, are world-class. Important to note is the fact that, the central African country launched an airline, ECAir, which, in the space of just four years, has become the benchmark for passenger air transport in Central Africa.

Beyina-Moussa, head of AFRAA this year, said: “At ECAir, we opted to negotiate with our peers and were able to conclude inter-airline agreements with TAC, Asky, Ethiopian, South African Airways, Air Algérie and agreed to operate the Brazzaville- Beirut route in collaboration with Trans Air Congo.”