Seven Gabonese airlines are on the black list of 21 airlines banned from European air space because “they do not meet the appropriate security conditions”, sources close to the Gabonese Transport Ministry told PANA on Wednesday.
The ban followed an audit report of the International civil aviation organization (ICAO) on Gabon, which named the Gabonese airlines as Afric Aviation, Air Service SA, Air Tourist (Allegiance), the National and Regional Transport, SD Aviation, Sky Gabon and Solenta Aviation, Gabon.
In view of this development, Afrijet remains the only Gabonese airline allowed to overfly the European air space but under certain conditions.
According to the 2010 data, released by the international air transport association (IATA), Africa records an accident rate of 12 times higher than the world average, revealing that about 18% of air accidents and 37% of deadly accidents take place on the continent.
Despite a significantly increasing growth rate over the past few years (one of the strongest growths in the world), African aviation has not yet resolved the problem of security in the sector.
The problems of maintenance are, among other problems, also some of the key factors considered by AITA.
There is a dozen aeronautic maintenance centres (in countries like Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa, among others) for the 500 plus air planes in Africa — a figure described as insufficient for the number of planes on the continent.
