Airlines Africa
Airlines Africa July 30, 2012
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Serving the Airline Industry and Airline Professional Across Africa
Kenya Airways Releases First Quarter 2012 Financials Kenya Airways released its operating results for the first quarter ending June 30, 2012. The company put into the market place capacity totalling 3,363 million seat kilometers which was at par with last year’s level. There were compensating changes evidenced in the network with incremental destinations launched to Delhi, India; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, while Europe shrunk due to capacity rationalization and the suspension of Rome flight. The capacity into Middle East and Far East regions grew by 15.0%. This was largely due to the introduction of direct flights to Delhi and Jeddah and the deployment of the larger B777 on
the Bangkok-Guangzhou and Bangkok-Hong-Kong routes as opposed to B767 evidenced last year. Capacity offered into Europe shrunk by 18.8% compared to the same quarter of prior year due to capacity rationalization occasioned by the Euro zone crisis. The Northern Africa region grew by 21.2% in capacity owing to the introduction of double dailies to Juba in Southern Sudan on the Embraer aircraft and increased frequency to Djibouti via Addis Ababa. There was also an equipment mix using the larger B737 and Embraer E190 as demand dictated. Capacity availed into the East African region remained Continued on Page 3
Boeing’s African Aircraft Forecast for Next 20 Years Shows Increase Over 2011 Boeing projects the African market will require 900 new airplanes valued at $120 billion over the next 20 years which is 12 percent up from its 2011 forecast. It recently released its market projections for Africa’s commercial aviation market. “Boeing continues to see Africa’s aviation growth outpace the world average due to a growing middle class and strong demand for business travel. Approximately 70 percent of the 900 airplanes forecasted will be for growth,” said Mike Warner, director of market analysis for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “African airlines are investing in newer, more fuel-efficient airplanes to replace their older fleets.” Boeing projects the African aviation market will outpace the world average due to strong economic growth in the region. Additionally, the rise in Continued on Page 2
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Nigeria’s Aero on Boeing’s African Fleet Renewal Aircraft Forecast and Expansion for Next 20 Years Aero of Nigeria has announced Shows Increase upcoming Boeing 737-400 and -700 deliveries as well as a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400. This all comes as part of its fleet renewal program. The aircraft will also allow the airline to add new destinations plus enhance its customer service to passengers. Aero is Nigeria’s oldest aviation company (52 years), and has been operating scheduled services since 2000. According to the company, it has consistently operated with 80 percent load factors over the last two years, and a completion factor of 98 percent for all its flights. The company also operates a rotary wing business which, despite challenges, is described as robust. “We are currently focusing on a niche market of small medium sized oil and gas companies, not only the majors,” said Captain Akin George, Aero’s managing director. “We believe these companies have very great prospects in the future, and we can partner with them to grow as well.” “Aero adhere strictly to the maintenance schedule of our aircraft as prescribed by the manufacturers and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority [NCAA],” George continued. “We are audited at least four times a year by the NCAA and three of our top customers who engage aviation inspectors from Europe and the US.” “We are venturing into emergency medical evacuation, search and rescue as we expand our rotary wing fleet size.” George added that the airline was working to expand its market domestically and regionally in the future and guaranteed customers its commitment to the highest safety standards. It is possible the airline will expand into third party maintenance. Aero is an NCAA Approved Maintenance Organization for both A and B checks, and recently announced plans that it would start performing C checks. Maintenance facility expansion could be a part of the plan. www.airlines-africa.com
Continued from Page 1 trade with Asian countries is driving the need for increased direct air travel. The increased demand for airplanes also means an increase in the demand for commercial airline pilots and maintenance technicians. Boeing projects Africa’s aviation industry will need 14,500 pilots and 16,200 maintenance technicians over the next 20 years. “As Africa’s need for new airplanes soars, so does its need for qualified pilots and technicians, said J. Miguel Santos, vice president of Africa for Boeing International and International Sales director for Southern Africa for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “Boeing recognizes the importance of a qualified workforce to fly and maintain these state-of-the-art airplanes, which is why we are partnering with Africa’s leading aviation schools like the 43 Air School to ensure Africa has a steady stream of qualified pilots and technicians.” The African economy is projected to grow 4.4 per year over the next 20 years, which is ahead of the world’s economic projection of 3.2 percent. “Africa is the second largest and most populous continent after Asia and their long-term economic potential is strong,” said Santos. “Over the next
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two decades, Africa’s economy is forecast to grow faster than the world average, driven largely by demand for natural resources; add that to the growing middle class, and we see a lot of growth in the region.” The African Development Bank projects that Africa’s middle class will grow by more than 700 million people over the next several decades. United Nations data shows that urban dwellers were about 15 percent of Africa’s population in 1950 and are expected to be 50 percent by 2030—a trajectory similar to that of Asia. “African carriers will continue to need to modernize their fleets to compete on routes historically dominated by foreign carriers,” said Warner. “Africa has one of the oldest airline fleets in the world and this is a market that demands newer, more fuel efficient airplanes to help offset the rising cost of fuel and the excessive maintenance costs of the aging fleet.” Strong demand exists to support increased non-stop routes between Africa and other emerging markets, as well as Europe and North America. While single-aisle airplanes will account for the majority of the deliveries over the next 20 years, twin-aisle fleets will evolve in the region as airlines continue to expand international services. Newer airplane types offer significant advantages in fuel savings and environmental performance as well as improved capabilities and maintenance costs. This African market update is the first time the company has released the African market update so close to releasing the world forecast.
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Kenya Airways Releases First Quarter 2012 Financials Continued from Page 1 at par though growth was evidenced on the Seychelles and Dar-es-salaam route by 25% compared to last year. This was mostly due to increased deployment of larger equipment. Capacity in Southern Africa region grew by 1.3%. Luanda and Nampula
African Union and ICAO Jointly Adopt Safety Decision The African Union Ministers, EU and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have adopted a multilateral decision on aviation safety in Africa. At the end of a five-day African Minister’s Conference on Aviation Safety in Africa, the announcement was made by the chairman of the conference, which was organized by the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) Augustus Dasilva-Tomas, conference chairman anounced that the all had agreed to work, under the auspices of the African Union, on improving safety with African aviation. AFCAC has been tasked with establishing a monitoring and reporting mechanism as a tangible metric from this decision. “Taking all necessary measures to ensure safe air transport operations in Africa in addition to a thorough and documented air operator certification process and an effective oversight of all African airlines operators,” said Dasilva-Tomas. “Taking measures to create effective regional aviation safety oversight organizations and regional accident investigation agencies as a means of developing state safety capabilities. The conference also appealed for international assistance in their efforts. www.airlines-africa.com
route registered the highest growth. West African region grew by 6.7% mainly from the new circular routes linking Lagos and Accra, Ouagadougou and Dakar and Cotonou and Bamako cities. On the Domestic front, capacity reduced by 5.0% compared to similar period prior year. This was as a result of aircraft downgrade to Mombasa from the larger B737 aircraft to the smaller Embraer E190. Kisumu registered a 33.6% growth in capacity due to increased frequencies during peak and use of the larger Embraer E190 compared to the E170 used in prior year. Uptake of total production at 2,203 million revenue passenger kilometers was 4.5% below similar period last year. Europe recorded the highest reduction due to the economic challenges facing the Euro-Zone economies. Northern Africa region led the growth with a record of 28.7% mostly due to Juba double dailies. The total passenger tally, which closed at 841,238 was at par with similar period last year resulting to a
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reduced cabin factor of 65.5% level. Cargo capacity dropped by 7.6% with a disproportionate decrease in tonnage of 3.9%. Exports from Kenya dropped on account of unfavorable weather patterns in April and market capacity. Volumes from Europe shrunk reflecting the volatile economic conditions. Passenger uplift to Europe at 89,852 was a reduction on last year’s level of 108,835 following the 18.8% capacity reduction. This resulted to 66.8% seat occupancy level that was marginally better than prior year’s level of 65.2%. In the Middle East, Far East and India regions, uplifted passenger traffic at 124,056 was at par with prior year against a capacity growth of 15.0%. The realised cabin factor of 68.1% was below prior year’s level of 78.3%. Within Africa but excluding Kenya, passengers uplifted totalled 445,143 indicating a growth of 2.9% on the back of 4.7% capacity growth. The resultant passenger cabin factor of 62.5% was 1.6 percentage points lower than similar period last year. Passengers uplifted within Kenya at 182,187 reduced by 1.4%. The resulting cabin factor of 73.2% was above 71.9% achieved last year.
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South African Airways Embarks on Internet Booking Engine Review South African Airways has identified the need to review its Flysaa. com internet booking engine technology with a view to ensuring that the offering remains relevant and gives us a competitive edge in all markets we serve. Since e-commerce is a critical channel for SAA, the selection of technology represents an important strategic decision. The airline has identified the guiding parameters that it will base any findings of the review on: • Functionality offered by the available solutions in the market • Detailed proposed solutions including the technical architecture of the solutions and how these can be deployed • Hosting and support models • Solution implementation timeframe including potential migration effort • Total cost of ownership for the solutions • Ability of the technology provider to continuously innovate with a short time to market • Potential partnership models envisaged The airline also has identified high level SAA strategic objectives for Flysaa.com: • Create and maintain a unique customer value proposition which is not only built around low fare offerings but rather a bundle of services which when put together provide a unique compelling offering • Year on year growth measured both in terms of revenue and number of bookings made through the channel • Growth of self service capabilities—shifting business from expensive channels and infrastructure to a more cost effective channel • Making it easy to transact with SAA • Drive increased share of wallet across the travel value chain through the provision of context relevant value added ancillary services www.airlines-africa.com
• Maximize search engine driven exposure •Know their customers , enable relevant value added offers South African Airways has also described key drivers for the Internet booking engine solution: •Flexibility in user interface approach, SAA wants to have as much control as possible where it relates to UI changes for specific bespoke products • A flexible, robust air shopping solution supporting dynamic fare families and merchandising which can support SAA, SA Express and SA Airlink • Business rules engine driven to allow for user management of complete merchandising strategy • Interline fare family or itinerary driven shopping support • Support for personalized customer offerings driven by elements such as loyalty profiles, origin and destination, market and SAA specific promotions • Support for origin and destination revenue managed inventory processes • Individual storefronts per country where functionality can be specifically configured • Retailing capability configurable per country storefront and product • Content is CMS driven and is customizable per market/route • Multi-currency and multi lingual support • Support ancillary services • Web check-in capabilities • A graphical user front end for reservations supporting similar features to that of the internet booking engine, to allow agents to effectively and consistently assist SAA customers • Innovative mobile solutions with a focus on quick time to market • Speed – A large percentage of the Flysaa.com customer base are within the borders of South Africa. Web site speed in all markets is a key consideration with an emphasis
being placed on our home market. Latency and bandwidth availability have driven SAA to host locally since the inception of booking services on Flysaa.com. Any consideration of international booking engine hosting would have to be backed up with the provision of content delivery network service provider • Support for SAA’s white label product “Skins” which has several thousand customers • Flexibility for multiple payment options including support for retailing solutions, local payment options • Flexibility in website tagging, SAA currently use Google Analytics as a standard • Open Web Services API which facilitates integration opportunities for 3rd parties • Multi-channel applications with consistent functionality regardless of platform and consistent look and feel • Support for SAA Cybersource fraud solution implementation • Support for SAA and industry specific forms of payment e.g. Pick & Pay retail store, Paypal etc. Specific Requirements SAA’s requirements touch every aspects of the passenger experience and the systems that support the interactions. Flysaa.com Leisure This is the SAA leisure product which is targeted at standard internet consumers. The product offers fare family shopping, calendar shopping, schedule driven shopping and booking capability to consumers without the need for a log in. This product accounts for a large component of all Flysaa bookings OnBiz OnBiz is a product designed for corporate travellers both small and large in nature. The product caters for the profiling of a corporate customer and all their associated travellers. The concept of travel administrators is introduced to facilitate all travel bookings, this process is greatly simplified through the use of the corporate and
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traveller profiles. The product also provides a vital link for corporate companies to their SAA corporate loyalty profile and allows for the redemption of corporate travel rands. The product has management reporting capability which provides the corporate with essential information on their travel spend. Voyager and Corporate FFP The Voyager and Corporate FFP product is aimed at the SAA Voyager loyalty member and Corporate FF Program. Where it relates to booking engine functionality the site provides for flexible redemption including calendar based shopping and booking. Manage My Booking This is the self service area of Flysaa.com which is aimed at providing essential change services for all customers. Change services will always be context relevant and will be tied to the product used for the booking i.e. Leisure, Voyager or OnBiz. The following functionality is available in the product—change bookings, retrieve and pay, upgrade with miles, seat selection, insert frequent flyer number, insert fremec number, request a tax invoice, special meal requests, view itinerary, cancel booking and request a refund Skins This product is SAA’s “white label” product. Today there are several thousand participants who have an SAA booking block on their website. When interacting with the booking block the users are redirected to Flysaa.com with their Skin number reference. This reference is tracked through the booking process which allows SAA to incentivize participants on booking conversions. Third Party Requirements In support of these products there are several third party solutions which require integration into the solution. The booking engine must provide an appropriate Service Orientated Architecture framework which will allow for ease of integration. Current third www.airlines-africa.com
party content providers include: • Amadeus CRS • PAYU – Formerly known as MWEB for domestic payment gateway services • SAA Ticketing Engine – Used for ticketing and the implementation of fraud management services with Cybersource • PayPal • SAA content management system - OpenCms • SAA Loyalty System – (Voyager and Corporates an IBS IFly Loyalty product) • Content providers – CarTrawler (Car), Expedia (Hotel) & Chartis (Insurance) • Sita Baggage Track & Trace application • Timatic (visa information) • Star Alliance Upgrade Award (SAUA) application Functional Requirements In general terms, the new system must be: • Multi-lingual • A flexible open architecture to allow for ease of integration to third party content providers • Business rules driven for user flexibility • High performance • Industry standards compliant • Innovative • Compliant with various industry requirements such as DOT, ANAC, European competition commission. Air Shopping The IBE must support the SAA defined fare family structure. The SAA fare families definition mostly caters for domestic fare families for travel within the boundaries of South Africa and International fare families for the rest of the markets. There are, however, O&D exceptions which have differing fare family definitions. Fare families and their respective features are currently configured in the merchandising tool (which is an integral part of the IBE). The current SAA pricing strategy incorporates the following
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Air Tweets Saurimo airport, in Angola’s northeastern Lunda Sul province, a $70 million project that includes a new passenger terminal, ramp parking for as many as three B737s, and a new control tower is on track for completion in the August/September timeframe. Precision Air Services has celebrated the opening of new its state-ofthe-art hangar at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA). The hangar was necessary to handle the growing fleet’s maintenance requirements. “The first in-house maintenance of one of our aircraft is a major milestone in Precision Air journey,” said Alfonse Kioko. the airline’s chief executive officer and managing director. It appears the Precision Air also has its eyes on maintenance, repair and overhaul for other airlines and aviation fleets as a source of outside revenue. The hangar facility seems to be large enough to allow MRO for their aircraft but to extend those services on a contract basis. Startup candidate Africa World Airline, itself a joint venture between the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, the Strategic African Securities (both from Ghana), and Chinese airline Hainan Airlines, are planning a September 21 start of service. Start of service will be with two ERJ-145s. A recent meeting of the Community Economique of the States of Central Africa (CEEAC) reaffirmed the organization’s interest in aviation. The group approved four actions: Study establishing a Regional Agency of the Civil Aviation in Central Africa; Methods of adoption of the Community Code of the Civil Aviation of the CEEAC; Approval of the projects of Decisions authorizing the signing the Conventions on the aerial transportation; Adoption of the resolution aiming the improvement of the representation of Central Africa to the Counsel of the DACI. July 30, 2012
Airlines Africa
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fare types in the market: • Private fares for onBiz closed user groups • Promotion fares • Dynamic discounted fares • Return fares which can be halved and combined with other fares within the same fare family • One-way fares • Restricted combinability in some instances • Advance purchase rules • Min/max stay • Sunday rules • Flight or day specifications
The IBE should support the following air shopping request types:
• Fare family displays for a given date range or a +- 3 day window • Cabin class based shopping requests • Multi-city availability led display • Redemption shopping with mileage display • Miles and cash based shopping SAA are hosted on the Amadeus CRS, shopping request performance and minimizing transactions to the host are both important solution requirements. SAA will be implementing an O&D based revenue management system so this must also be taken into consideration for the solution design. Air Booking The air booking process represents the closure of the sale and should be facilitated in a single step with no duplication of information requested. Personal details need to be collected for each passenger, the level of details collected can vary dependent on the route and SAA product. The level of detail required for booking capture is provided in the functionality spreadsheet. Both the OnBiz products and the Book By Miles products have a level of profiling built into them with the aim being to simplify the booking process and ensure consistent accurate detail included into the PNR. An initiative is currently underway to introduce profiling into the Leisure product and this should also www.airlines-africa.com
be taken into consideration. From a payment perspective Flysaa.com offers MasterCard, VISA, Amex and Diners credit card fulfilment in most markets. For South African Rand transactions this is facilitated via the PAYU payment gateway and for foreign currencies this is facilitated via the Amadeus CRS. SAA utilise CyberSource for fraud and risk management, this integration is currently performed outside of the core booking process through an SAA bespoke product known as the ticketing engine. The decision to build the CyberSource integration outside of the core booking process was driven by the time lag that would be introduced with real time fraud scoring and the need to have a follow up process for transactions which require a manual agent review on Cybersource. Pick & Pay is a retail chain in South Africa and payment in store is offered as a Pay Later option on Flysaa.com. This fulfilment mechanism is made possible utilising a set of bespoke web services completely outside of the SAA IBE. Current short term payment initiatives underway for Flysaa.com include the enabling of PayPal, this integration will take place directly with PayPal. The second initiative is the implementation of a local EFT mechanism known as Autopay which will be integrated through the PAYU product. Merchandising and Cross Sell Like many airlines globally SAA is seen by the consumer as a trusted travel provider and this is an opportunity for us to cross sell commodities such a car, hotel and insurance. This business is a growing revenue stream for SAA and we will constantly be seeking to maximize this through the ongoing improvement of content offerings and improved user experience. To this point the current Flysaa. com providers for these commodities are Cartrawler, Expedia and Chartis. Key to the success of growing Flysaa.com revenues is for the chosen booking engine platform to have a strong merchandising capability. The solution must recognise travellers as individuals who have different personas on different days and talk to them
6 appropriately. The platform must allow the control of what is displayed to user to be configurable via business rules and the control of this will lie in business hands where it belongs. The merchandising capability must extend to all air and non-air products and services available on Flysaa.com Administration and Reporting With the latest Flysaa “Journeys” launch in October 2010, a key solution architectural principle was that the control with respect to managing the over 50 Flysaa.com storefronts must lie within the business. SAA has limited web development resources and these should be used to deliver key business initiatives rather than perform administrative functions. This led to the delivery of vast administrative functionality being developed for the GUI front end. Similarly the current Flysaa.com IBE has a built in rules engine and much administrative capability. A key component for administration is also content which resides in SAA’s Java based OpenCMS product which delivers fare rule, baggage and important notes content. This CMS based content allows a great level of granularity allowing content to go down to the level of route specific if required. In short a minimum level of control by the business has become a way of life and any solution offering will have to live up to this expectation. With the responsibility of content control comes accountability and the need for full audit trail with respect to any changes made. PNR Requirements Over and above the basic information required for a PNR, SAA have developed many standard OSI items and remarks required for an Internet booking. The information requirements do differ dependant on the product origin of the booking. These items have become important for downline systems to identify web bookings and various MIS systems. Since SAA support the purchase of ancillary items, the concept of a Super PNR is to be supported where details of any ancil-
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lary items purchased are recorded. Manage My Booking Since self-service is a drive for SAA, a complete suite of self-service functionality catering for all the various products is a minimum requirement. The functionality should not only provide the opportunity for SAA customers to service their own PNR’s but should have a strong focus on ancillary cross sell and airline upsell opportunities. Since the PNR will contain all flight and ancillary services purchased, the change functionality must be intuitive in highlighting any potential discrepancies introduced by the changes. As an example changing a flight date could drive changes in car and hotel bookings. The functionality must cater for changes made at any SAA direct channel with a focus on web and call center bookings. Technology SAA require the flexibility to source content and services from travel partners who can bring the most value to the table. An open technology platform which facilitates simple integration for core services and the ability to add content providers in a timely and cost efficient manner is essential for the success of the online channels. SAA may elect to source most or all applications and functionality from a single provider but the option to part-
ner with other third parties will always remain a consideration and will be driven by the business requirements. Since industry standards are constantly evolving, the chosen solution set must constantly be compatible with industry standards where it relates to Internet browsers and other mobile technologies. Promotions Flexibility to run various web, mobile and call center promotions without the need for any IT or pricing department reliance is required. Such promotions must always have the appropriate audit trails and reporting which will allow SAA to monitor their success and execution. A flexible promotions engine will allow the business to facilitate various closed user group value added services and the flexibility to react to competitor activity in the shortest time possible. Ancillary Services Ancillary services will be an area for incremental revenue growth for SAA in the immediate future. SAA currently offer car, hotel and travel insurance purchases for the online channel. These services will be optimized in future to offer them to the customer at the right opportunity via the various channels. For example insurance in-path can drive a higher adoption rate without introducing additional complexity which could put the flight purchase at risk. The manage my booking area also offers good cross and upsell op-
portunities. The SAA ancillary strategy will include other services in the future which may or may not be linked to EMD’s so flexibility in the approach is once again key to success. Online Marketing Online marketing tools offer a very cost effective option to advertise SAA special deals whether on our own website, mobile channel or third party affiliates. A rich set of online marketing functionality is a minimum requirement and the functionality should be configured once but available via all channels i.e. website, mobile channel and call centre GUI. Call Center Technology In order to facilitate an efficient, consistent service to our customers it is essential to have a user graphical front end that can be used by call centre, ATO / CTO agents across SAA, SAX and SA Airlink. The focus is to ensure that agents are equipped to respond to customers’ needs effectively and efficiently with an intuitive front end with similar and additional functionality to that of the internet booking engine. Where agents are able to relate to booking functionality exposed on the website and perform the extra functions required such as list displays; inventory displays etc. The necessary validations are built into the front end to reduce human error and restrict fraudulent activities. Mobile As part of the self-service strategy mobility forms a key component in allowing customer to do various functions such as: • Booking, Manage My Booking • Location based applications and content • Flight status enquiry • Schedule enquiry • Airport navigation Process There are three phases to SAA’s process with only invited offerers being asked to submit further proposals beyond Phase 1.
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July 30, 2012
Airlines Africa
The Look of Ethiopian Airlines’ New Headquarters
Söhne und Partner, in a joint venture project with BET Architects, an Addis Ababa-based firm, have won the design award for Aerthiopian Airlines’ new headquarters. Their proposal was designed to meet program requirements, responding to local and international context, creating functional efficiency and high flexibility both at internal space usage and external phasing and additions. This is, the team believes, achieves in a very simple, clear and honest manner balancing with richness in its maturity. Moreover, it is a proposal targeting to create a high quality international standard building that can reflect the image the fast growing and expanding Ethiopian was
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seeking through its high quality international service it offers Africa and the world. In cooperation with BET architects from Ethiopia, Söhne und Partner won the international design competition for Ethiopian Airlines’ new headquarter in Addis Ababa. The airline has shown progressive development since its establishment and is now one of the fast growing and reputed airlines in Africa. The new headquarters planned to address the need of its growth, dynamic operation and attaining its Vision-2025. The landscape, being an important part of the interior design, is flowing trough and underneath the building. The office blocks are cantilevered above the street level as a
8 floating form. It recalls to mountains, canyons or rocks. Bridges are the connecting elements as a symbol of connecting cultures and nations. Like the landscape is flowing into the building, the lobby itself is floating and rising. Like the landscape is coming into the building, there are always connections from the inside to the outside. There are terraces you can use, where you can have your break. The designers wanted employees and visitors to always feel like being in nature. The gardens in between the office blocks are landscaped areas with trees, benches and art sculptures. As man-made buildings intrude into the landscape and in the midst of natural processes, so should the landscape and all adjoining natural processes make a striking yet pleasant intrusion into man-made buildings. Hence, the headquarter building has emerged to be a physical setting shaped as a number of departmentalized random blocks and the semi-external/internal voids in between the blocks allowing both human and natural elements to flow through, exposing at the same time harboring the internal circulation elements: the lobby, corridors, stairs, escalators, lifts, and bridges within the voids created among the blocks. It is a project targeting to create a high quality international standard building that can reflect the image the fast growing and expanding Ethiopian is seeking through its high quality international service it offers Africa and the world. The sun shading for the grand lobby is done by symbolizing trees, made out of timber. The office blocks are located around it. This is the place where people meet for business, chat, eat, relax, and walk. Like in a village all the different blocks are placed around the square where all life is actually happening, all important functions like conference center and the central archive is also placed there. It is the place where the major flow happens. The combination of extending the blocks and the possibility of building new block gives a maximum flexibility for future expansion. Landscaping is coming into the building. A very strong connection between the inside and the outside is the result. July 30, 2012
Airlines Africa
African Airlines Association’s African Route Network Cooperation Traveling in Africa today is much easier and convenient than it was a few years ago thanks to the intra-African spread of some of the continent’s carriers. But the frequency of flights is still limited and the daily spread concentrated at peak times only. Many of the airlines do not align their schedules with each other, resulting in misconnections, long lay-overs at airports and sometimes extra costs incurred in accommodating passengers in hotels. The African Airlines Association (AFRAA) has launched an African Route Network Cooperation project with the objective of increasing intraAfrican flight frequencies and offering flexibility to travelers while increasing airlines revenue at minimum cost. According to AFRAA, many African carriers currently optimize their own network but have limited coordination with other African carriers. Changing this trend to a more cooperative results driven approach through
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schedule optimization and code-share will deliver significant incremental revenue and benefits for airline by: • Growing flights connectivity between African cities and between Africa and other regions by coordinating each carrier frequencies, day of operation, and departure time • Developing the airline schedule on markets where the carriers have small or limited exposure • Adding new destinations under the airline own code without operating the route • Improving aircraft utilization and use aircraft resources in new markets • Enhancing elapse time on beyond markets to increase carriers market share • Analyzing new market opportunities by specific carrier and potential partners • Reviewing opportunities to season-
9 ally reduce schedules between two or more carriers in common markets Delegates present at the Route Newtork launch meeting held on July 23, at the AFRAA headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya Tapping into the expertise of Sabre Airline Solutions, a leading providers of high-performance solutions for the airline industry, AFRAA hopes to ensure that the African airlines route networks are integrated and aligned to allow operators to generate both incremental traffic and revenue at minimal costs. Sabre Airline Solutions will act as the independent third party consultant for the airlines, ensuring that the project is fully implemented and the benefit realized. Schedule cooperation will ensure that all participating airlines systemwide benefits from any adjustment to their network. There may be instances of a trade-off where airlines losing revenue on specific route will more than recover such loss from revenue generated on other routes in cooperation with another partner airline.
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A key driver to the success of this project however is schedule stability in any specified season or period. For any given season, airlines have to stick to their schedule and avoid any commercial changes, unless drastic changes to the market condition occur. However, in circumstances where two airlines cooperate on multiple routes, they may agree to adjust their overall network to optimize the traffic. To realize optimum benefits for
each airline and ensure sustainability, the network cooperation will involve a systematic approach to analyzing individual operations and merging the outcome with the view to arriving at synergistic benefits unattainable by any one airline on its own. The process will involve: • Optimizing the schedule of each individual airline with the objective of ensuring that the airline is fully capturing its market potential on
Ethiopian Airlines’ first 787 Dreamliner Shown in Full Colors
After flying to San Antonio, Texas, Ethiopian Airlines’ 787 Dreamliner has been painted in the airline’s livery. After being painted with the colors of green, yellow and red, the Dreamliner will fly back to Seattle. Ethiopian will be the first African airline to fly the 787.with flights expected by mid-August 2012.
10 the routes it operates, and also to develop the revenue baseline to be used in measuring future performance after any alignments. • This phase will be followed by merging the optimized schedule of the participating carriers and proposing to each airline: o Schedule changes to enhance connectivity o Slot adjustments o Routes for code-share and special pro-rate agreement o Incremental revenue and traffic on each route or sector Each carrier will compare the proposed cooperative schedule to its optimized stand-alone schedule and make decisions for additional improvements. • Sabre Airline Solutions will assist airlines who want to code-share to timely do so from a scheduling, commercial, technical and legal standpoint. Specifically, Sabre will assist during the negotiation of both airlines to ensure equity, fairness and longevity of the agreement. • Following implementation, Sabre will on a monthly basis measure the performance and benefits of the cooperation for each airline and each route, and recommend ad-hoc changes should the results be lower than initially expected. In addition, Sabre will provide support and guidance to each airline to ensure that participating airlines minimum requirements are all met and also ensures consistency within passenger service needs. The first meeting of interested airlines in this project included Kenya Airways, TAAG Angola Airlines, South African Airways, RwandAir Air Malawi and Air Zimbabwe. A three-man team from Sabre Airlines Solutions facilitated the discussions and offered technical assistance throughout the meeting and will continue doing so afterwards. Sabre has experience in implementing similar network cooperation projects for airlines in the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean.
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July 30, 2012