Africa will harmonise its aviation training in order to regulate the fast growing industry, United Nation’s aviation body, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said on Monday.ICAO General Secretary Raymond Benjamin told a regional conference in Nairobi that there are various standards throughout the continent which are hampering the region from harnessing its full potential. “Africa should harmonise its aviation industry training in order to ensure that the region’s industry maintains its safety record,” Benjamin said during the official opening of the Consultative forum of the Association African Aviation Training Organizations (AATO). The three-day conference will bring together over 200 delegates from the Africa’s aviation training industry in order to harmonize their standards. He added that AATO will designate aviation centres of excellence and also ensure that training institutions get capabilities to train the required personnel in order to sustain the expected air traffic growth. “Standardisation and uniform accreditation will help in the facilitation of mobility of qualified personnel as well as accelerate the training of personnel especially across the continent,” he said. Benjamin said that Africa is expected to experience an average growth of eight percent in air traffic in 2012 while Kenya is forecasted to expand by 14 percent in the same period. “Africa accounts for only three percent of worldwide air traffic and so current potential is enormous,” he added. Benjamin noted that globally the industry needs 500,000 new personnel to join the industry in order to serve the growing demand.“The younger generation needs to be encouraged to join the sector in order to bridge the growing deficit.” The career is not perceived to be well paying any more,” he added. Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) Director General Hilary Kioko said that currently the country is registering between three to five aircraft every month which calls for increasing the number of skilled personnel to operate planes.“Currently Kenya has a deficit of 800 skilled personnel in the aviation industry and so the country needs to train an additional 2,000 skilled in the next five years,” Kioko said.He added that the most severe shortages has been experienced for air traffic controllers, aeronautical engineers and cargo dispatchers.
