RWANDAIR WELCOMES NEW ‘COALITION OF THE WILLING’ AVIATION DEAL
(Posted 20th October 2015)
When the next summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects, in short NCIP, countries takes place in Kigali will the heads of state look very closely at the state of airspace integration, after expressing their indignation at the just concluded Nairobi summit over the slow pace of implementation. The presidents were, according to a source from Nairobi, expressly unhappy about their bureaucrats failure to implement their directives vis a vis a unified air transport system and reportedly instructed their transport ministers to provide a report about the why’s and who is responsible for the delays.
Main brake shoe is again thought to be the Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority. According to reliable sources close to KCAA, sources in fact in strong disagreement with the authority’s attitude and behaviour towards fellow EAC and more important, fellow NCIP countries, have sections of the authority been following a deliberate unwritten policy to, if not make impossible at least delay access by airlines into the Kenyan market, even if part of the NCIP block.
RwandAir is said to be again strung along by the KCAA in finalizing the route rights between Nairobi and Juba, similar to having been first blocked and then for some time capacity capped for the fifth freedom route between Entebbe and Nairobi, when the flights were launched earlier this year. Under the integrated airspace cooperation will the KCAA’s power to keep airlines from the NCIP countries at arm’s length likely be severely curtailed as fifth freedom operations across the combined airspaces will then become domestic operations.
The new aviation deal is set to be effective and implemented by 01st January 2016 and in another turn of events will upcoming bilateral air services agreements then be replaced by multilateral air services agreements with the NCIP members on one side and their BASA / MASA counterpart countries on the other. Added components will be the setting up of a joint NCIP unit to deal with search and rescue operations, incident and air accident investigations.
Besides predominant regional carrier Kenya Airways will RwandAir be the main beneficiary with access to the Ugandan and South Sudanese markets and when the airline goes long haul next year – RwandAir has two Airbus A330 aircraft on order and plans to add two more B737-800NG to its fleet too in 2016 – will both Entebbe and Juba very likely see access to those long haul destinations in China, India and Europe.
In fact, the RwandAir Deputy CEO Mr. Jean Paul Nyirubutama was quoted to have said that East Africa was very important for the airline’s business and the ongoing political initiatives to open up the NCIP airspace was therefore most welcome as it provided the means to make the aviation business more efficient and profitable.
