The cost of air travel within the East African Community (EAC) region is still very high, making flying more of a preserve for those who are relatively well-off, the regional parliament has concluded. It urged the EAC Member State leaders to lower these costs to make travel affordable for citizens.

The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) made the recommendation on June 20, in Arusha, as it adopted the report of its Committee on Communication, Trade, and Investment on the assessment of the Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency (CASSOA)’s performance.

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While presenting the report, the Committee Chairperson, MP Shahbal Said Suleiman, said the taxes, charges, and fees that affect ticket costs are high in the EAC region.

"There is a need to explore strategies to make airfares affordable,” Suleiman pointed out.

The Assembly requested the EAC Council of Ministers to urge the Partner State to finalise national consultations on having a harmonised air tax/fee regime.

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While air transport can open and connect markets, facilitate trade, and support tourism growth — where convenient air service facilitates the arrival of larger numbers of tourists to a region — parliamentarians argued that such potential was being undermined by high flight charges.

"You move as if air transport is for a specific few,” MP Gerald Blacks Siranda from Uganda told The New Times, adding that it was far costlier to fly within EAC than in the USA.

"You fly from Kampala to Arusha at $480. And yet, I can fly from Washington to Dallas, and I am using $180,” he said, indicating that this happens despite the former being a shorter distance covered within an hour, while the latter is a longer one covered in eight hours.

"So, the airline people should align the costs so that we attract many people, that way, they will collect more money than only being costly, and only a few people can jump on the airlines,” he said.

MP Ole David Sankok said, "Travelling from Entebbe to Dubai is cheaper than travelling from Entebbe to Nairobi,” indicating that there are some businesspeople who cannot travel [by air] within the region because of very expensive air tickets.

The need for air transport harmonisation

The parliamentary report exposed that each EAC Partner State put in place a regulatory framework governing the air transport services sector, including charges per passenger and air navigation.

For instance, based on the data from the African Airlines Association (AFRAA)’s Air Navigation Charges in Africa report of November 2020, the publication showed that taxes and fees paid by passengers on international departures in EAC airports, were $40 in Burundi; $54 in Tanzania; $57 in Uganda; $77 in DRC, while they were $50 in Rwanda and Kenya, each. Data was not available for South Sudan.

All these passenger taxes and fees were higher than the average $30 in Europe and $29 in the Middle East, according to the AFRAA report.

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For navigation charges per airplane, the parliamentary report indicated that they greatly varied, from $53 in Burundi to $218 in Kenya; $140 in Tanzania; $100 in Rwanda; $125 in Uganda; while no data were provided for the case of South Sudan and DRC.

MP Francine Rutazana said that earlier (in 2021), MPs made a similar recommendation regarding the CASSOA efficiency where they requested the EAC Council of Ministers to work on the harmonisation of air transport prices in the region.

"What is the roadmap for the implementation of those recommendations, because we need to move from one step to another, but we are turning around every time,” she asked the EAC Council of Ministers who were represented at the plenary in Arusha.

Uganda’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for EAC Affairs, Rebecca Kadaga, who was representing the EAC Council of Ministers during the plenary, said, "We are going to task the sectoral council on transport, communication, and meteorology to address challenges including harmonisation of policies for air transport.”