Date: 19/07/2006
Source: Ministry of Transport
Title: Radebe: Aviation Safety and Security – Africa Conference


  Speech by J Radebe, Minister of Transport, at Aviation Safety and Security – Africa 2006 conference, Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg

Master of Ceremonies, Mr Robert Jenny,
Distinguished speakers,
Members of the civil aviation industry,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me begin by thanking the organisers for changing the programme to allow me to participate in this important conference. As a result, my input comes at the end of your discussions, rather than at the beginning of the conference. Unfortunately, the Department has not yet briefed me on yesterday's proceedings, and I have not therefore been able to get a sense of the tone or content of your engagements. But at least the subject matter of your conference, focussing on developing suitable safety and security oversight capacity in the African aviation sector, has been a keen priority of governments across the continent for some time.

Another result of my speaking at the end of your conference is the need to change the format of what I was going to say originally. Rather than provide you with a keynote address I have elected to home in on a number of precise points in a way that hopefully summarises but also looks forward to further discussions between role-players and stakeholders alike.

The first thing to note is that as safety and security in aviation has risen dramatically in public prominence since 9-11 2001, so have the number of workshops, seminars and conferences on the topic. This Conference, for example, follows the Aviation Safety Seminar held in February this year, as well as important African Union (AU)-led Ministerial conferences on the same topic, and airlines' associations' gatherings dealing with the same topic. Across the continent, conferences of this nature are occurring regularly. Similarly, the Directors-General of Civil Aviation Conference on a Global Strategy for Aviation Safety held in Montreal, 20 to 22 March 2006, made a number of conclusions and recommendations that have to be implemented to enhance aviation safety. The conference agreed on a need to achieve a further reduction in the number of accidents and especially fatal accidents to maintain the public confidence in the safety of the global air transport system. These recommendations and others will filter into the country safety regimes in due course.

As a means to keep the issue at the top of the agenda this is a good thing, especially for specialists to keep up to date with modern trends and new technologies or training requirements arising from the implementation of new security and safety standards in the industry. But I must warn that we run the risk of conference and seminar overload as a result. If I, for example, were to accept invitations to attend all the conferences that deal with issues within my transport portfolio, I would not have time for any other engagements at all! Concerns have also been raised about the manner in which commercial marketing initiatives sometimes seem to be the major reason for gatherings rather than policy development, assessment or practical critique of systems as they develop. It is not always possible or indeed necessary to separate these completely, but I would really urge more careful thought of the rationale for conferences in the first instance.

In February this year I dealt in depth with the economic impact of aviation in Africa, particularly in terms of its economic development, but I am not going to repeat what I said then. Basically, air transport contributes about 2.4% of global GDP, and has become the primary means of moving people and high-value freight around the globe. Air transport and its related services and industry back-up employ about 29 million around the world as well. Some 40% of international tourists travel by air.

Air transport has a growing impact on Africa's economies as well, generating about 470 000 direct and indirect jobs across the continent, and contributing over US$11.3 billion to African GDP. If we add air transport-dependent tourism activities, then the number of jobs increases to over 3 million and the contribution to African GDP reaches some US$55.5 billion! As we all know, tourism is a driving force in a number of African countries, including Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania and is assuming an ever-increasing importance in South Africa and Namibia as well. An amazing 20% of all tourism jobs in Africa are directly related to air-borne tourists. Comparatively, tourism-related employment supported by air is higher in Africa than Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and the Middle East. Only 300 000 people in the United States of America (USA), or 4% of direct employment, for example, in tourism depend on arriving visitors from overseas.

In Africa, air transport continues to be a primary means of communicating with remote areas, providing relief from natural disasters, transporting humanitarian aid, assisting and supporting peacekeeping efforts and, at the other end of the scale, bringing Africans closer together and improving consumer welfare. Increasing numbers of airlines, including low-cost airlines, are popping up all the time. Whilst questions remain about the sustainability of many of these smaller airlines, the fact remains that aviation is becoming more and more accessible to ordinary people, and we can rest assured that passenger numbers will continue to grow significantly in the near future.

By the way, an Airlift Strategy for South Africa is before Cabinet at the moment. This strategy arises from an examination of the aviation constraints that Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) has identified, and aims to improve South African airlines' international competitiveness, thereby growing South Africa's share of the international transport market and meeting the tourism and trade sectors' requirements for cost-effective and efficient air services. The Strategy represents a specific intervention within an overall approach to the development of the aviation sector, and I look forward to intense engagement with the document once it is published for public comment in the near future. So, watch this space!

An emphasis on the economic impact of the aviation sector, particularly where we are attempting to increase the contribution that aviation makes both in its own specific terms and in the broader development of the aeronautics industry generally in Africa, must raise the question whether our regulatory, safety and security regimes are mature enough to cope, flexible enough to adapt, and technologically efficient enough to sustain and retain competitive advantage. I am pleased, looking at your conference programme, that you have successfully mixed these elements together, highlighting airspace management questions, to the employment of the most recent technologies to assist in such critical areas as weather prediction, and to assess emergency and disaster management systems, to oversight mechanisms of safety plans, and so on. One task now will be to integrate the knowledge gained and shared experiences into effective operations and oversight by all concerned, including governments.

All of us work within the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) framework, taking their requirements as minimum steps to the achievement of greater goals. The dynamism of the aviation sector requires a continuous process of developing and promoting new or amended measures to improve security for air travellers worldwide, whilst promoting other practical measures, such as efficient border crossing procedures. These topics have been a hallmark of aviation since the first-ever international convention on air navigation met in Paris in 1910. That first conference also agreed to disagree over another fundamental issue that of the sovereignty of nations and the right to control a nation's airspace, contrasted to the obvious economic and social benefits of having limitless and unrestricted access to the air.

As acts of unlawful interference continue to pose a serious threat to the safety and security of international civil aviation, the ICAO continues to pursue policies and programs designed to prevent such acts. We are in total support of ICAO's Aviation Security (AVSEC) Mechanism, the series of Aviation Security Training Packages (ASTPs) and the Regional AVSEC courses it runs. We also support the ICAO Universal Security Audit Programme (USAP).

Aviation security is an immediate concern, not only to the civil aviation community, but also to the public. We must remind ourselves that aviation security is a collective responsibility, involving various state agencies, airport authorities and airline operators. This also highlights the need to ensure the maximum level of cooperation between, and integrity of all role players in the aviation security chain.

Quite often we tend to forget that aviation safety has as much to do with safety in the air as it does on the ground. After all, what goes up must come down! We must bear in mind that many airports in Africa are surrounded by large, frequently informal settlements, where the majority of people are poor. The flight paths of aircraft in the environs of airports, the areas where most safety related incidents take place, including crashes on take off or landing, also track across largely poor but densely populated areas. Too often, air accidents involve casualties and destruction on the ground too, and so air safety is also actually a concern for communities on the ground. This is important to remember in a context where too often, expenditure on what appears to be remote but expensive infrastructure and technology is sometimes seen as taking bread from the mouths of the poor.

A few weeks ago, I addressed the Board of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa in some detail on the initiatives and steps we have taken to deal with air and airport safety and security. I would merely refer those who are interested, to the department's website to access that document if you don't know it. I must stress that it is not helpful at all to jump to conclusions about the nature of our aviation safety regime, and who is responsible for problems, on the basis of isolated incidents or without getting the full details first. The recent unfortunate cash heist at the general aviation area adjacent to the Bloemfontein Airport is a case in point. Almost immediately some media and political parties jumped to the conclusion that Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) was somehow responsible because the incident occurred at an airport; and that following so soon on the heels of the Johannesburg International Airport cash heist, it was further evidence of a complete collapse in airport security. When it emerged that in fact the incident occurred in an area totally separate from the ACSA-controlled airport, and that security lapses by the private contractor concerned probably played a large part in the success of the heist, silence reigned and no apologies were made to ACSA or anyone else who were initially and incorrectly assumed to be at fault. It seems a peculiarly South African habit of the moment to leap to conclusions about serious matters without waiting to check anything, and then marching of to the next "crisis-in-waiting" in order to be in the front of the queue to make sensational statements. We should not be blinded by the glare of the instant comment in an age of instant communication when in fact we are dealing with a complex and dynamic environment that requires time, training, investment and detailed operation to function properly.

The absence of effective, autonomous civil aviation authorities continues to be a serious obstacle to implementing safety oversight in certain states. Africa should strengthen regional safety oversight organisations or initiatives that represent good vehicles for enabling states to fulfil their safety oversight obligations and achieve long-term sustainable results. Each state has a responsibility to ensure safety in the airspace within its territory, including the operation of aircraft of foreign operators. It is therefore desirable that processes for the recognition of certificates and licences are valid, as well as ensuring a uniform approach to the surveillance of foreign aircraft operations. Flags of convenience - also referred to as "paper airlines", illegal operations and criminal activities endanger the safety of our skies.

South Africa, like the rest of the African continent, is concerned by the lack of transparency in the listing of airlines by the European Union (EU) and also on the negative impact of the ban on other African airlines not on the list. South Africa is joining the African states in calling on the ICAO to develop a code of conduct regarding the technical banning of aircraft operations of third countries. The banning should be based on well-defined criteria and methodology. I would suggest also that as much as commentators focused their attention on the number of airlines that were recently prohibited from European Union airspace, apparently for reasons of safety, very few noticed that the listed airlines were deemed unairworthy despite being registered by particular Civil Aviation Authorities in their respective countries. The bannings then, were as much a reflection on the airlines concerned as they were on the competence or otherwise of state regulatory authorities and systems. Obviously this is a matter of deep concern.

As economic liberalisation has become one of the defining features of modern-day aviation, there is a need to ensure that the safety framework continues to meet the requirement for the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation. There is a need to clarify the concept of the operator and the relationship with the state responsible for its safety oversight.

There is no better time for Africa to reduce and ultimately eliminate duplication of efforts in respect of technical cooperation on aviation safety and security. Africa must mobilise its scarce resources with a clear focus on improving civil aviation safety and security.

In conclusion, I would like to call on you to form a very strong partnership to deal with aviation safety and security challenges in Africa. We must move away from reliance based solely on outside help as it is us who should rise to the challenge of making African skies safer and secure.

Thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Transport
19 July 2006