Captain George Kamal used the opening of the 14th Aviation Stakeholders Convention in Johannesburg to frame African aviation’s current position in direct terms: the continent is no longer operating through a temporary period of disruption, but in an environment where resilience has become an everyday operational requirement.
Addressing delegates under the theme “Resilient African Aviation: Partnerships – Empowerment – Profitability,” he said the theme was “not simply a conference theme,” but an operational reality for African airlines dealing with compounding pressure across their businesses.
The industry’s challenges are familiar, but their combined impact continues to test African carriers. Pandemic disruption, global supply chain failure, aircraft and engine shortages, rising insurance costs, currency pressures, infrastructure constraints and geopolitical instability have all placed additional strain on airline operations and balance sheets. The current Middle East crisis, he noted, has once again exposed how quickly global aviation can be affected by external shocks.
For African airlines, these shocks translate into practical and financial consequences: longer routings, booking volatility, fuel surcharges, insurance uncertainty and further pressure on already fragile balance sheets. Supply chain instability is also affecting fleet planning, maintenance recovery and operational predictability.
Yet the sharper message from his address was that Africa’s greatest aviation constraint is not only external pressure. Some of the continent’s most serious limitations remain internal.
Kamal pointed to Africa’s fragmented aviation market as a central weakness. Despite a population of more than 1.4 billion people, intra-African connectivity remains among the weakest globally. He said intra-African connectivity sits at around 3%, while only about 28% of intra-African routes are served by direct flights.
In many cases, he observed, it remains easier for an African passenger to connect through Europe or the Gulf than through another African hub. Africa does not lack passengers, geography or commercial potential. What it lacks is the level of integration needed to convert that potential into a stronger continental aviation system.
Kamal challenged African aviation leaders to examine why the continent still does not have strong airline alliances of its own. He questioned why African airlines continue to feed intercontinental alliances while not doing enough to feed one another, and why carriers on the continent continue to compete aggressively on thin routes while foreign operators consolidate traffic flows across Africa with stronger coordination.
His argument was not for isolation from global aviation. Global alliances remain important and strategically relevant. The issue is whether African aviation can build enough internal strength to participate in those relationships from a more coordinated position.
The proposal he placed before the convention was the creation of what he described as a Pan-African Alliance, a coordinated African aviation alliance capable of connecting African airlines into one integrated African market.
Such an alliance, in his view, would go beyond basic cooperation. It could include coordinated schedules, aligned hubs, codeshare arrangements, cargo integration, loyalty programmes, maintenance cooperation and training partnerships. Instead of fragmented airlines duplicating inefficiencies, African carriers could begin to operate with the kind of coordination already used by major global alliances.
The strategic value would not be limited to African traffic alone. Kamal argued that a Pan-African Alliance could become a bridge between major global alliances and the African market, with African airlines and African hubs serving as the continent’s organised gateways. Rather than allowing external carriers to benefit from fragmented entry points into Africa, the continent could position itself as a coordinated aviation market.
That distinction matters as Africa’s aviation sector prepares for long-term growth. Kamal said Africa’s fleet is projected to more than double, from approximately 700 aircraft today to more than 1,700 aircraft over the next 20 years. On that basis, the continent’s central aviation challenge is not a lack of opportunity. It is a structural problem.
The recent period of geopolitical rerouting has already shown Africa’s growing strategic relevance. African hubs adapted, carriers repositioned networks, and new traffic flows were captured as global aviation adjusted to disruption elsewhere. Kamal’s conclusion was clear: Africa is no longer peripheral in global aviation. It is becoming strategically central.
However, strategic relevance will not automatically translate into stronger African airlines. Without integration, the continent risks continuing to export traffic, value and opportunity through foreign hubs.
The profitability element of the convention theme was therefore inseparable from partnership and empowerment. Profitability cannot be built on fragmented networks, duplicated costs and weak continental feed. Nor can resilience depend only on the ability of individual airlines to absorb each new crisis. For African aviation to become genuinely resilient, the system itself has to become stronger.
Kamal’s address was ultimately a challenge to the current operating model. African aviation has spent years discussing connectivity, cooperation and market potential. The question now is whether airlines, governments, regulators and industry bodies are prepared to move from principle to structure.
His closing message placed responsibility directly on the current generation of African aviation leaders. The choice, as he put it, is between remaining fragmented while others build global power through unity or building one connected African aviation market with a stronger continental voice.
The key question: “If not now, then when? If not us, then who will do it?”
