With SA funds, expertise, Ghana aims to be region’s aviation hub

Ghana is seeking to outsmart Ni¬geria to become the aviation hub for Central and West Africa by engaging loss-making South African Airways (SAA) as the ar¬rowhead of an inspiring col¬laboration with Ghanaian and Togolese investors.
This scheme is starting with SAA taking a stake in Togo-based Asky Airlines as part of a strategy to develop its West African business, BD Live reports.
Undoubtedly, Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, will be the primary focus of the enlarged Asky if the deal goes through, say analysts.
An SAA team would visit Ghana early next month to assess that country’s po¬tential as a regional hub for SAA-operated flights, Monwabisi Kalawe, SAA chief executive officer, said this week. Setting up a hub in the region is one of the key points for the airline’s long-term turnaround strategy.
Nigeria and Senegal were both considered as bases for the region before SAA set¬tled on Ghana.
Kalawe said the trip was at the invitation of Ghanaian aviation officials, after they had signed an agreement for the Airports Company SA (ACSA) to upgrade airports there.
One of the options under consideration is to partner with Ghanaian investors in acquiring part of Asky, which operates out of the Togolese capital, Lomé, and relocate it to Accra.
Asky (pronounced A-Sky) began commercial op¬erations in 2010, having been formed at the instiga¬tion of West African states following the collapse of pan-African airline Air Af¬rique.
Shares in Asky are held mainly by private-sector investors, although the pres¬ence of Ethiopian Airlines as a strategic shareholder could be an obstacle to SAA’s plans.
The Ethiopian national carrier is the fastest-growing African airline and is SAA’s most potent Africa-based competitor.
Kalawe gave no indica¬tion of the cost of an Asky deal. SAA has long been waiting for a multi-billion rand capital injection from the Treasury and has been surviving by borrowing against a R5 billion govern¬ment guarantee.
Kalawe also declined to respond to market sugges¬tions that SAA’s losses this year could sharply dete¬riorate after improving from R703 million in 2012 to R425 million last year.
He reiterated previous statements that if SAA’s turnaround strategy worked, the airline would break even by 2018-19 be¬fore entering a period of sustained profitability.
Kalawe himself has been under fire recently after he was accused of personally trying to buy shares in trou¬bled Senegal Airlines after it proposed that SAA acquire a stake early this year.
After denying the al¬legations, he was backed up by both the SAA board and former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba.
Kalawe said SAA origi¬nally wanted to create flight hubs in both East and West Africa, but after deciding the former was almost satu¬rated, mainly through the operations of Ethiopian and Kenyan airlines – decided to concentrate on West Africa.
He said West Africa was under-served by airlines and analysts point to con¬sistent failures by Nigerian aviation chiefs to put the nation in its proper place by working to promote Nigeria as the undisputed hub in the region.