Sustaining the attractiveness of aviation in Africa

Smart looking pilots and air hosts and hostesses, beautiful aircraft and airport terminals are part of the attractiveness of aviation in Africa. Training skilled workforce in the industry is very expensive for the per capita income of many African countries. Added to the fact that administration of student loans is challenging, means that the supply of such skilled labour in the industry, will still make labour issues continue to be challenging going forward.

To sustain the attractiveness of aviation in Africa will require addressing the bottlenecks to finance and infrastructure improvement as well as addressing workforce challenges.

Improving aviation remains on the front burner in Africa. The future looks good for the industry despite the headwinds being faced in recent times. The industry expects air traffic to double in 2030. The middle class across Africa and globally are adjusting to recent upsets due to the cost of living crisis.  The planet continues in its strive for upward growth and to also rekindle the demand for travel which went south as a result of the pandemic. These factors demand that Africa sustains and continues to grow the attractiveness of aviation for present and future generations.

The economies of Africa have various growth prospects that are both latent and being exploited to expand the frontiers of production possibilities across the globe. This means that airports have to adjust to the increasing numbers of both domestic and international travellers as well as demand for cargo. Airport expansion and modernisation programmes along with the establishment of Greenfield airports have been their response to this emerging challenge.

Retaining and sustaining a strong and diverse workforce will be needed to cater for and accommodate this upward growth trajectory. The Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) had reported a contraction in aviation workforce by 43 percent which is about 4.8 million jobs globally during the pandemic. As travel grows and new airlines come into operation or old airlines are revived, competition for labour would rise and new employees will be needed. This calls for a strategy for planning and developing human resources on a short term and long term basis.

The work environment will have to be attractive and show long term prospects for potential employees. This is important as airlines in Africa continue to contend with survival in the face of competition, restrictions due to regulations in other continents and financing challenges. This will require investment in human resources and collaboration by all stakeholders.

Uncertainty as to the future of the industry can become a bottleneck to human resource attraction. Trapped funds in central banks are a concern not only to airlines but also to airports, travellers and all stakeholders as they are impacted by it in different ways. A continuous process of communication on successes and failures, as well as the state of the industry, done transparently and explaining how jobs will be impacted by these will build trust and understanding to keep the shine of aviation to the workforce.

There is a lot of innovation in the industry with increases in new technologies and automation. This calls for acquiring new skills by the existing workforce as well as employing a new generation of employees. It is not new that in the workplace there are different  generations of employees with various motivations to work. While aviation stakeholders upskill the existing workforce they must also not assume that the cocktail of generations in the workplace require similar treatment.

With an engaged and happy workforce, not only will efficiency of processes improve, customers in the industry will be happy flying and stakeholders will see improvements in their bottom line.