The recent plane crashes in Ghana and Nigeria have highlighted the concern to address airline safety in Africa. The African continent only has a 3% share of all airline traffic, yet accounts for the highest rate of accidents. This alarming statistics was brought to our attention by Bill Voss, the head of the Flight Safety Foundation.

Voss says by visiting websites of international aviation organisations passengers can avoid low standard airlines.

In Europe, there is a black list containing all the airlines with safety problems, banning them from the European Union airspace. Do we have such a list in Africa? It is unthinkable that unsafe airlines even operate, or that incompetent staff are in control of the safety of passengers.

The IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) program is an internationally recognised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. IOSA’s quality audit principles are designed to conduct audits in a standardised manner. Any airline passing this audit can be considered trusted that they meet the safety standards.