Date: 10/05/2004
Source: Ministry of Transport
Title: J Radebe: 17th Plenary Session of African Civil Aviation Commission


OPENING REMARKS BY JEFF RADEBE, MP, MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AT THE 17TH PLENARY SESSION OF AFRICAN CIVIL AVIATION COMMISSION GALLAGHER ESTATE, Johannesburg, 10 May 2004

Dr Assad Kotaite, President of the International Civil Aviation Organisation
Mr Taieb Cherif, Secretary-General of ICAO
President of the African Civil Aviation Commission
Secretary of the African CAC
Distinguished delegates
Representatives of Observer Institutions
Members of the Secretariat
Media representatives

Invited guests, ladies and gentlemen

It is an honour for me to welcome you all to Johannesburg for the 17th Plenary Session of the African Civil Aviation Commission. As this is my first formal engagement as the Minister of Transport in President Mbeki's second administration, I would like to pay tribute to a brother and comrade who was known to many of you, my predecessor, the late Dullah Omar, Who recently, succumbed to cancer. Minister Omar was a passionate representative of the belief that everything we do in government must be informed by social and economic benefits our work brings to the masses of our people. At all times, he urged that even as we engage technical matters we should not loose sight of the needs of our people, and of the need to keep them informed about decisions we take.

Dr Kotaite, President of ICAO, allow me, Sir to extend to you a special welcome to South Africa. It is always a pleasure to welcome representative leaders of the United Nations and its official organs to our shores, more especially when it is the first time we can do so in an official capacity!

Through you, Mr President, I would like to extend South Africa's gratitude at the manner in which ICAO acceded to our request for membership of your august body last year in Canada. In particular, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to those countries, especially African countries that supported our election to your structures as well. Let me at the outset assure the international aviation community that South Africa will honour its commitments to the letter and we will do everything within our power to assist the global efforts towards securing a safe, efficient and effective civil aviation " environment. ICAO and our regional and continental structures will enjoy our full participation and support.

My task this morning is a welcome one, to formally open the proceedings and encourage technical teams and committees to get down to some hard work over the next few days. As you will appreciate, I am probably the newest kid on the block' as far as transport and civil aviation sector is concerned, and so I will not pretend to offer definitive suggestions about the nature of problems or what the required solutions might be. That, after all, is the responsibility of delegates and the plenary session itself.

However, let me share some general perspectives with you on the nature of the tasks facing us. As I see it, the challenges arise in four main areas. The first set of challenges arises from present condition of civil aviation in Africa itself. The second set relates to our responsibilities as signatories to a host of international conventions that are exercised through membership of associations and as individual countries. The third set of challenges arise from what needs to be done to establish and operate sustainable institutions and administrative structures that allow us to do what it is we have to do. These three sets of challenges also interact with a fourth dimension, namely the particular way in which global environment of insecurity and of economic uncertainty impacts on us as a continent as a whole.

A thumbnail sketch of some of problems facing African civil aviation today would include a laundry list that ranges across the whole arena of civil and commercial aviation. It is important to note at the outset that the type of general problems identified by operators, consumers, professional bodies and specialist media are not necessarily characteristics of all regions or indeed countries of the continent. But for the sake of our discussions, it is useful simply to note what they are.

Africa boasts a large number of civil airlines, many of which are country flag-carriers under state ownership or even under private ownership or operating under concessions. Many of these airlines suffer from poor financial performances that can be traced to a number of factors including low traffic volumes on intra-Africa routes, smaller airlines that lack economies of scale, high insurance costs and wildly erratic fuel costs and low productivity. Recent years have witnessed the rise and fall of many smaller airlines and considerable pressure brought to bear on even established airlines.

A common problem relates to general inadequacy of regional air services where peace and quite of air travel is offset dramatically by the nightmare of poor scheduling, delays and cancellations on the ground, and the difficulty of adjusting to time-consuming travel arrangements to get from one point in Africa to another. At the moment it is a sad fact that very often the best route from point A to B in Africa is via Europe. It is probably as a result of these problems that African travellers are faced with enormous costs to fly within Africa, costs that far often are much higher than costs of intercontinental flight.

We are also all aware that there are serious deficiencies in air control over much of Africa's airspace. Heated debates often accompany the analysis of statistics, but I do not think that from whatever perspective one looks at the evidence, Africa cannot be satisfied with safety record as it stands at the moment. But it must be obvious to any observer that the reasons for the problem are many and include problems of air traffic navigation and management, as well as problems associated with aging or near-obsolete equipment on the ground and in the air, of proof maintenance and of an inability so far to ensure uniformity in the application of desired safety equipment these are fundamentally infrastructure and investment issues that compete in our countries' budget discussions with other critical social and economic demands, but which we will continue to ignore only at our peril.

But there are also other problems on the ground, Operators and consumers alike often complain about high user charges at some African airports that are apparently not matched by corresponding levels of service. At the same time, new and improved service provision costs money and so a balance needs to be found between over- and undercharging, and making sure that former preferences or monopoly costs do not undermine the drive for improvement Much of the as yet poorly estimated costs relate to security at many African airports, security that covers not only terminal buildings and public areas themselves, but also enhanced security for the whole airport environment, including runways, perimeters, electricity sources and various ground stations and beacons that may not be within the boundaries of airports themselves.

The second set of challenges facing us relate to the plethora of responsibilities that arise from international law obligations and requirements of conventions and agreements, Not least of these would be series of actions needed to implement detailed ICAO regulations across a whole range of fields. It seems that, in summary form, these divide into two main types of responsibility: the first would roughly be described as service related and the second Institutional.

In so far' as service related responsibilities are on the current agenda, I would just mention the need to come up with appropriate yet realistic timeframes for the implementation of suitable regulations governing aviation environmental protection. The most obvious one in this regard is noise- The extent to which developed world concepts such as acceptable level of noise pollution in an urban setting can be carried into other parts of the world is a debate I do not want to entertain here, but the fact remains that we should examine whether the "one size fits all" approach will address the issue adequately. I would understand that all our airlines at one point or another have faced significant fines at European and North American airports, so there is another commercial angel to the issue as well. Nevertheless, ICAO has moved forward with an accommodation of some of Africa's concerns on this score and we need to develop an approach to see implementation in as practical a manner as possible. Naturally, sooner or later the question of reducing and controlling engine emissions and other aviation pollutants must also be dealt with. But once again, these are issues that are related in part to the question of aging air-fleets, and the application of often-costly new technologies, and of adequate maintenance facilities.

A crucial area of service-related obligations is in the area of search and rescue. By its very nature, search and rescue in the aviation arena is closely related to the maritime environment and to terrestrial operations. The list of international conventions is long and I do not intend summarising them here. Globalisation and international nature of aviation require high degree of standardisation of aviation safety activities. A fragmented approach to the implementation of ICAO standards and recommended practices can only hamper development of a truly safe global aviation industry.

As air transport liberalisation advances in Africa, we must also not lose sight of the additional safety and security challenges that it will bring. It is under the various modes of liberalization that indeed responsibilities for safety can become: significantly diluted and the ability of States lo effect sound safety oversight can become seriously compromised. Whatever policy options we adopt as states, we have to ensure that there can be no compromise on the degree to which the state's responsibility to safety keeps up with new challenges as they arise. This will require significant reconsideration of previous approaches towards cooperation in safety oversight. ICAO's Cooperative Programme of Operational Safety and Continuing Airworthiness Programme, or COSCAP, is surely a very important instrument to assist Africa as we plan to meet these demands.

I am pleased that ICAO is working hand in hand with the African CAC to investigate Africa-specific needs in regard to search and rescue operations. To this end, the visits to various African countries including South Africa are most welcome. Due to the dynamic and global nature of the environment under which search and rescue services are provided, it is necessary for the search and rescue authorities to continuously scan the environment to be abreast of developments and trends. The challenge is for the search and rescue to be proactive, effective and efficient in their approach in responding to search and rescue trends, developments and incidents. This will ensure that quality services are provided in line with international best practices, will ensure compliance with international agreements, and see that emerging search and rescue demands and priorities are met.

On this score I must note one concern, and that is the number of false alerts that our safety, search and rescue operations have to deal with annually. If I may use South Africa as an example just last year, 2003, the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre logged 1055 incidents but upon investigation, 785.proved to be false alarms. The Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre for its part logged 83 distress calls in 2003 of which 79 turned out to be false alerts. Under any other circumstances such figures would encourage a spirit of "cry wolf" where in future genuine calls could be ignored. I am pleased to note, and I wish to commend, everyone who participates in various search and rescue operations not only in South Africa but everywhere. At the same time, it is imperative that we attempt to do more to develop an equivalent spirit among the population to discourage false alarms or prank calls.

In the meantime, Governments need to be advised on the most appropriate technological solutions that can be applied in the search and rescue environment, including joint cooperation between states and between government departments, to ensure that safety in general remains at the top of the agenda.

The third set of challenges I identified at the outset relate to the institutional and administrative requirements needed to ensure action on all fronts.

Currently, the African Civil Aviation Commission is a specialised agency of the African Union to coordinate all matters; relating to civil aviation in Africa such, your activities provide the international body, ICAO, with a unified African voice on these matters. As such, the African Commission works alongside other formations from around the world, synthesising and analysing the different experiences and needs of the world. Within Africa, civil aviation matters are further considered by various regional bodies and ultimately by various authorities within countries. However, I am informed that various resolutions have been tabled recently in a number of meetings that are designed to improve work that the African CAC has been charged with.

Similarly, I believe that ICAO itself has some suggestions to make in this regard. , A primary point of reference would be the ability of the African structure to finance its activities, as well as to ensure that the multiple tasks it has set itself come to fruition with responsible speed.

An important point of departure for any assessment of Africa's progress would be to look at the implementation, or indeed, the lack thereof, of critical elements of the Yamoussoukro Declaration. From our perspective, Yamoussoukro .was and remains a response to many of the challenges highlighted above and provides for a framework for the gradual liberalisation of the African air transport market. At the same time, since its adoption, a number of impediments, .to its implementation have arisen. Not least among these is the delay in the establishment of the implementation organ contemplated in Article 9 of the declaration, or the lack of uniformity in competition rules. These problems notwithstanding, it does appear that the Yamoussoukro Declaration is one of the most important tools available to us at the moment to ensure co-ordinated and streamlined development of Africa's airline industry. If there are areas that we believe should be strengthened or amended, then we should be bold enough to say so.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the civil aviation sector is a dynamic one. We should be motivated in whatever we do and through whatever suggestions we have, by a simple rule: the need to promote the best way of achieving our goals. NEPAD is very clear about what is we need to do, and it emphasises co-ordination 'and co-operation without ignoring diversity of experience. It is clear that civil aviation in Africa faces many challenges, many of which are historical but soma of which loom largest in the present and even into the future. These latter result from the fourth item I mentioned at the outset, namely the insecurity and hence uncertainty of the global environment.

The global aviation community has only partially recovered from the devastation caused by the events of 11 September 2001, in the United States. That unfortunate event has had a devastating impact on air transport in its entirety, including airports airlines, air navigation services, ground handling and availability of insurance, notably war-risk insurance cover. But even before the dramatic effect of 9-11, the industry was well aware of increasing security threats and challenges. Civil wars and open hostilities in many parts of Africa made life unbearable for many on the ground, but also posed threats in the air. I do not need to recount how airlines had to alter routes or schedules, or had to improvise security counter-measures to avoid the hazards of instant coups, attacks on aircraft and so on. One of the most recent incidents, in Mombasa, Kenya, has only served to highlight the pressures that are being brought to bear on our sector. Thus we have seen, and all had to deal with. Baggage screening techniques, the introduction of biometric testing and machine readable travel documents, the rigorous questions of the deployment of armed air marshals on commercial aircraft the question of cockpit security, and now the installation of measures to avoid missile attack from the ground. Cost considerations aside for the moment for established, let alone struggling airlines we need urgently to address issues of training skills development and public education to establish what might be seen as intrusive techniques as legitimate instruments for the security of us all.

Africa is a continent of diverse experiences and uneven development. The challenges are huge. The commitment to resolve them, however, I believe is there and up to the task. Your deliberations during this Plenary Session come at a critical time as the African Civil Aviation Commission faces some of its most demanding challenges.

I am confident that this gathering of African aviators, all of whom share the common vision of finding African solutions to Africa's aviation challenge, will be able agree on creative ways of dealing with them. May I wish you hearty deliberations, and in the true spirit of experts in the field, may you succeed in finding collective solutions through the development of options and programmes that benefit us all wish to assure you of the South African Government's continued commitment to regional and continental initiatives to better the lives of all the citizens of Africa.

I thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Transport
10 May 2004