Three weeks ago, I took an Air France flight from Freetown to Paris (via Guinea Conakry). For the most part, the flight was enjoyable; most of this had to do with my being upgraded to Premium Economy, Air France’s version of ‘not quite Business Class’ but which tends to be populated by people who seem to think and behave like they are travelling Business Class. I believe that the Gods were watching me that day because had been stationed in my original 30 cm X 30 cm space in Economy Class, I would probably still be at physiotherapist.
One thing that really stood out was the age of the plane: the Airbus A330-200 we took is apparently 22 years old. I know this because a Sierra Leonean, who boarded in Freetown, asked the steward about whether there were sockets (presumably to plug in his laptop) in ‘Premium Economy’. To this the steward replied ‘This is an old plane, so there are no sockets. It is 22 years old, and we will be – how you say – decommissioning the A330 soon at Air France’. To this, the man replied: ’22 years old! Heh! We are dead!’ The steward laughed and reassured the man that the plane was perfectly functional, which it was. I found myself struggling to supress a wry smile because the remark got me thinking about some of the flights I have taken over the years to and from Africa and flgihts to the continent more generally.
I immediately recalled the Delta flight I took in June 2013 from Accra to Atlanta, where I connected to Ronald Reagan International Airport in order to attend a World Bank Conference in Washington DC. I wisely – although there is no way of verifying this – ‘upgraded’ to Economy Comfort on the Accra flight, paying $40 for the move. At the check-in desk, the agent – rather inexplicably – boasted, with a smile, ‘Welcome to the oldest plane in Delta’s fleet. Enjoy…’ It certainly lived up to this billing: the videos functioned intermittently; the stewardesses and stewards looked like they did not want to be there; the catering was awful; and the Economy Comfort seats were, well, worn so much that it felt like I was sitting on concrete, not cushion. More recently, I read about a similar experience in Nigeria where, in June 2015, passengers began voicing complaints about the old Boeing 767 plane deployed by Delta on its Lagos-Atlanta route. In addition to experiencing numerous mechanical faults and causing a number of flight delays and cancellations, the plane, despite covering one of the company’s most lucrative routes, has been singled out for its subpar service and poor catering (see http://saharareporters.com/2015/07/13/nigerian-passengers-reject-delta-airlines’-old-planes for the full article) Of course, there are exceptions (for example, KLM revamping, in 2015, a Boeing 777-200 for its Amsterdam-Accra flight) but for the most part, we repeatedly see planes that are barely flight worthy coming from European and North American skies touching down on African soil. Why do European and North American airlines insist on using the worst planes in their fleets on their African routes? One would think that because of the underwhelming travel experience, that flights to Africa would be fairly cheap. On the contrary, they rank among the most expensive in the world. Why is this the case?
I looked into this a bit more, and there seems to be a number of reasons why these flights cost so much, and ultimately, why most European and North American airlines select old planes for their African routes. Let me highlight a couple here, drawn from ideas contained in two interesting articles (http://www.ibtimes.com/african-air-travel-why-are-airlines-africa-so-expensive-unsafe-impossible-navigate-1234609 and http://www.travelstart.co.za/blog/4-reasons-flights-africa-expensive-faq-fridays/). The first is poor infrastructure, a problem that plagues most of Africa. Many African airlines use old planes that are fuel inefficient, which forces them to charge exorbitant prices. Complicating matters further is the cost of fuel in a number of African countries and at times, its availability. Understandably, few Western airlines are willing to codeshare with these outfits, which enables them to jack up their own prices whilst still getting away with using poor aircrafts. This leads to the European/North American carrier ‘city hopping’. Some examples that come to mind are the aforementioned Air France Paris to Freetown flight four times per week, which continues to Guinea Conakry, and the Air France flight to Guinea Conakry flight three times a week, which continues to Bamako before heading back to Paris.
Second, and something we often forget, there is simply low demand to fly to Africa. According to the World Bank, the continent has less than 1 percent of global air traffic, and is home to roughly ten percent of the world’s population. Most of these people live on less than US$2/day and would therefore struggle to take a communal taxi, let alone a plane. Only the very few wealthy and elite, a large share of whom reside in the affluent country capitals of Angola, Accra, Abuja and Kinshasa, and are the direct beneficiaries of booming natural resource-dependent economies, are able to take a plane bound for Europe or North America with regularity. The low demand ultimately drives up the cost, irrespective of the aircraft deployed.
Of course, things are not all doom and gloom. In recent decades, we have witnessed the rise of Ethiopian Airlines, which posted profits of US$42 million in 2012, buoyed by contracts forged with the AU and UNECA, both of which are conveniently headquartered in Addis Ababa; South African Airlines, which now operates over 50 aircraft, servicing cities as far afield as Washington DC and Perth; and Kenya Airways, which, despite its losses, has been bolstered by KLM, which now holds the largest stake in the company. But whilst these airlines have made movement within and to and from Africa easier, bringing costs down ever so slightly in some cases, we are still faced with the prospect of high airfares on shabby aircraft.
So, unless you plan on driving to Africa, be prepared for the worst in the air…
