East African Community (EAC) should expedite the liberalisation of its airspace and domestication of flights and declare it as one common airspace for all airlines registered and licensed by the bloc’s partner states, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) has recommended. This is one of the recommendations the regional parliament made during its plenary sitting in Nairobi on March 12, as it adopted a motion for a resolution of the Assembly recommending to the council of ministers and partner states to expedite the liberalisation and domestication of the EAC airspace. The motion was moved by MPs Paul Musamali Mwasa, from Uganda, and Kennedy Musyoka Kalonzo, from Kenya, and it was seconded by Gerald Blacks Siranda, from Uganda. Lawmakers held that the liberalisation and domestication of the East African airspace will create new airline routes and greater connectivity of the Community leading to shorter travel times, greater convenience and savings for East Africans and will stimulate trade and boost tourism. ALSO READ: Open skies could earn EAC $200 million annually: study Justifying the motion, MP Kennedy Musyoka Kalonzo said that air travel within our region is unnecessarily expensive and it is this expense that the motion hopes to solve. “Just as I was sitting here, I quickly checked out how much our flight from here [Nairobi] to Dubai was, and I discovered it is 37,000 Kenyan shillings [approx. $266], while a flight to visit our neighbours, who are our members in this House – to DRC – is 100,000 Kenyan shillings [approx. $720],” he said. “Really, if we are talking of integration, we really need to look at this issue of our airspace,” he said, observing that one of the issues that the motion seeks to address is the non-tariff barrier of travel within the region. MP Mathias Harebamungu, from Rwanda, said it was observed that EAC partner states were sticking to what they call BASA – bilateral air service agreement – which was hindering the growth of the industry, and was [negatively] impacting on their citizens. “Partner states still require what they normally call overflight clearance. This is very critical, and this is hindering that industry,” he said. “You fly from Nairobi to Kigali, from Nairobi to Juba, from Nairobi to Kampala, [and] you have to apply for an overflight. And this is within EAC where we talk of free movement of people, free movement of goods. And this affects again the fares on the tickets” he said, pointing out that fees charged on different tickets are higher than the real cost of the tickets. MP George Stephen Odongo, from Uganda, said that “there is too much rhetoric around how we want to facilitate the growth and the deepening of our integration, and air transport is one of them.” “Unfortunately, we are operating in silos when it comes to determining our fares. And when you look at it critically, you realise that the overflight fares, the charges for each jurisdiction, is causing a lot in terms of the cost of transport,” he said. Giving an example of flying from France to Holland which takes you an average of about one hour and 20 minutes and you pay $100 as airfare, and the travel from Entebbe to Nairobi, which is about 55 minutes and you have to pay about $450 return ticket, he questioned the bid to make East African Community a competitive investment destination. “By domesticating these air flights, which is the player of this motion, we are saying that each flight that we take from this destination within the East African Community are considered domestic flights. And in doing so, we will make sure that East Africans are going to travel freely and begin to enjoy and appreciate our integration,” he observed.
