West African skies beckon more carriers

by Drew Hinshaw

From Senegal to Sierra Leone, start-ups, decrepit local carriers and even international airlines are out to prove that jet travel can extend beyond deep-pocketed passengers to West Africa's flourishing middle-class and business travelers.

In the past year, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways Ltd. and even American R&B singer Akon have invested in new local carriers. Air France-KLM SA is in talks to take a 35% stake in Air Ivoire, Ivory Coast's bankrupt carrier. Delta Air Lines Inc., which flies to five cities in the region from the U.S., began flying crowded planes between Accra and Monrovia, Liberia in February.

It's easy to see why.

West Africa has some of the world's fastest-growing economies, including that of Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. The International Monetary Fund projects that Ghana's economy will grow 13.5% this year.

The International Civil Aviation Organization expects Africans to fly 8% more miles in 2012 and 8.3 % more in 2012, making the continent earth's fastest-growing for air travel behind Asia and the Middle East. And industry analysts say traffic here could expand even faster as competition heats up, pushing prices down.

But the new airlines are flying into some of the world's most dysfunctional airspace.

Runways often lack lights and the hangars, spare parts. Short hops between World War II-era airports frequently cost more than overnight trips to Northern Europe. Africa has the world's highest rate of "hull losses"—the industry's euphemism for crashes.

Many industry executives blame West African governments. Political interference has bankrupted airlines and hobbled collaboration between state-owned carriers. Government fees and ground handling charges are high. West African governments say they are working to make air travel smoother. "We are going to put everything at work so that the prices go to a lowered, affordable rate," says Moussa Diabaté, deputy cabinet director at Ivory Coast's Transport Ministry.

"The challenge we have in Africa is our aeropolitics," says Doreen Owusu-Fianko, managing director of Ghana Airports Co., which operates Accra's airport. "Governments are yet to appreciate the benefits aviation can bring to an economy. A lot of them think aviation is for the wealthy."

Not Starbow's Mr. Friesen. Starbow charges $60 for its Accra to Kumasi flight and $85 for the airline's most expensive flight, an hour-long jaunt to Ghana's north. Both fares are two-thirds what Starbow's next competitor charges, said Mr. Friesen. At the lower rates, Starbow's executives had predicted the number of Ghanaians flying within their country would rise by 25 %—instead, it doubled in October, Starbow's first month.

Competitors are on the taxiway. Ethiopian Airlines last year launched Togo-based ASKY Airlines in partnership with local investors, and plans to use it as a platform for expanding in the region.

Akon, the R&B singer, has helped finance plans by the Senegalese president's son to start Senegal Airlines, which started flights in the region last January. Kenya Airways based its two-month-old West Africa unit, Fly 540, in Accra, next to Starbow's ticket counter.

Next year, there will one more: Africa World, founded by Ghana's Togbe Afede XIV, a king of eastern Ghana's Asogli state. The airline plans to offer the same flights as Starbow, targeting first-time fliers and Chinese immigrants, says Chief Operations Officer Sean Mendis.

"If you make travel easy for them," he says, "one of the first things people like to do—as a sign of their freedom, as a sign of their prosperity—they want to get on a plane, visit some family, do some more business."

"We've proved you can bring affordable flying to Africa," says Mr. Friesen, a former Canadian Airlines International vice president.

A year ago, Mr. Friesen was Air Malta PLC's chief commercial officer, trying to fill flights to the Mediterranean island in a recession-wracked market "where there's not much you can do," he said. Now, in West Africa—where livestock occasionally meander onto runways—he has the opposite problem. On Mr. Friesen's desk lies a map of West Africa, dotted with capitals the Canadian struggles to pronounce, like Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. By next year, he plans to fly between Accra and four of those capitals. By 2015, all 15.
 
Wall Street Journal