Regulation – or more accurately, deregulation – has the opportunity to turbo-charge African aviation, through opening up landing rights across the continent.

This is according to Tony Tyler, IATA director general and CEO who was speaking during the 47th AFRAA Annual General Assembly in Brazzaville.

“There is a regulatory framework standing ready to achieve this: the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) commits its 44 signatory countries to deregulating air services and to opening regional air markets to transnational competition,” he explained.

“Unfortunately, however, the implementation of this agreement has been slow and the benefits have not been fully realized. To quantify some of those benefits, we recently commissioned independent economists to research the impact of applying the Decision to 12 key markets across Africa. The results were startling: intra-African liberalization between these 12 markets would provide an extra 155,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in annual GDP. A potential five million extra passengers a year would have the chance to travel,” he said.

“The good news is that there are both established and new-entrant carriers ready to service this demand. Fast Jet is building a multi-national brand presence. Sub-Saharan Africa now has three major hubs in Ethiopia, Johannesburg and Nairobi, and their home carriers are strong brands. Moreover, regional players are gaining strength—like ECAir, based here, and run by AFRAA’s current President, Fatima Beyina-Moussa. It has already transported over a million passengers since it began, and operates a modern Boeing fleet. Some have argued that opening up Africa’s skies will weaken African airlines, but I believe more traffic and more services opens up greater opportunities for all.

“The logic for opening Africa’s skies is inescapable, and it is very encouraging to see the States of the African Union commit themselves to implementing Yamoussoukro by 2017. We commend the 14 States that have signed up to full implementation of the YD since January 2015 and urge other States to follow suit for their benefit and the overall benefit of Africa. Lastly, I would also urge States to accede to and implement the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). This Agreement offers enormous potential for least developed and developing countries to reduce transport costs by expediting air cargo through smart borders, thus making them more competitive in the global economy.

“The TFA sets down clear and practical provisions to help States establish smart borders. These include automated procedures, pre-clearance of cargo, creation of trusted traders programs, border agency cooperation, and the application of risk management procedures, allowing compliant traders to proceed quickly through borders and switch resources to manage high risk cargo shipments. Overall, the OECD estimates that full implementation of the TFA will reduce the cost of trade by 15% in less-developed countries—an important tool in creating more prosperous, stable economies,” he concluded.