SA and Ethiopia commit to open-skies push
A transport-related memorandum of understanding signed between South Africa and Ethiopia on Friday was hailed as a precursor to an increasingly concerted effort by South Africa to ensure a further opening of the skies over the continent.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, South Africa’s Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, reiterated South Africa’s call for a more rapid liberalisation of the continent’s air-transport regime, in line with the Yamoussoukro Declaration of 1999, which committed states to an ‘open skies’ policy.
Currently, bilateral agreements are required to access destinations in most African countries. And while many countries, including South Africa, have paid lip service to the Yamoussoukro agreement, they still continue to stoutly defend their routes.
Radebe and his Ethiopian counterpart, Transport and Communications Minister Juneydi Saddo, announced that aviation transport was a key feature of the cooperation agreement.
In this area, the deal covered the liberalisation of air-transport services, including double designation and improving relations between South African Airways and Ethiopia Airlines. Technical cooperation on safety, security and airports development was also envisaged.
“One of the critical things indicating the robust relationship between Ethiopia and South Africa is the issue of opening the skies between the two countries. A few weeks ago, our government adopted an airlift strategy, which is the first step in ensuring that we liberalise our skies for the furtherance of the objective of connecting Africa. Ethiopia and South Africa will be taking the lead in making sure that we open the skies between our two countries. I hope our two airlines and others will take advantage of this space,” Radebe stated.
Government would unveil its airlift strategy, which supports the further liberalisation of the skies over Africa, at an Africa conference on aviation safety taking place in Johannesburg on Monday.