12 minute read
More women needed in senior roles
Aviation needs more women at the top
Yvonne Manzi Makolo, CEO RwandAir, says the air transport industry must continue to improve diversity in senior management.
INTERVIEW BY: GRAHAM NEWTON
As RwandAir emerges from the pandemic, having a single African market, more testing, opening up routes, and increasing the number of women at the top echelons of airlines would be among the measures its CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo advocates for getting the airline industry in Africa up and running again.
What were the worst aspects of the crisis for you as an airline CEO?
It has been very diffi cult every day and it is still diffi cult. It has been a long 18 months.
The biggest challenge has been the uncertainty. Our plans stopped and started so many times because of the travel restrictions. And those decisions about travel restrictions were often arbitrary and not rooted in science. It made it impossible to plan with any confi dence. Whether it was our network or our staff or the health protocols, we had to adapt as best as we could at short notice. For the airline, the need for fl exibility has been an important lesson.
But it was an anxious time for our staff who were worried about their jobs, and for our passengers too. You have to remember that travel was already stressful for many people. Now, they were also worried about getting stuck in another country or being refused entry or not knowing the correct health protocols at an airport or infl ight.
It was hard to give them peace of mind and the confi dence to travel because we didn’t know exactly what was happening either.
Can the health protocols being established in other regions—such as proof of vaccination— work in Africa?
Globally, there is no doubt that the vaccination program has been instrumental in helping travel to restart, especially internationally. It is a great tool for the industry.
But we must be clear that this won’t work for Africa.
In Africa, the overall vaccination rate is less than 5% and we will struggle to get anywhere close to the rates being seen elsewhere, even in a year or two’s time. Simply, making vaccination a mandatory condition for travel would shut out most of the African market and African travelers.
Fortunately, we do have an alternative in testing. A negative test close to departure should be suffi cient. But it must be aff ordable.
Across Africa, the cost of testing varies widely. Making it cheaper is not just about allowing more people to travel. It is about health safety.
There is a lot of fraud because of the high cost of testing. Fraudulent paperwork about a negative test is cheaper to acquire than a valid test so if governments ensure testing is aff ordable it would not only enable more people to travel but also improve health safety for every traveler.
What will it take for aviation to recover in Africa?
There has to be more support for aviation from governments. But this doesn’t necessarily mean fi nancial support.
Now, more than ever we need a single African aviation market. We have talked about it endlessly but the time for talking is over and we must get on with the implementation.
Africa must open up. African airlines must have open skies and be able to fl y where they want to meet travel demand.
This would help with the biggest challenge we face in Africa outside of the pandemic, which is cost. Whether it is the cost of visas, airport charges or taxes on aviation fuel, travel within Africa can be extremely expensive. If the market opens up, competition will increase, and this would drive down prices and improve standards.
The African market is vastly under-tapped and opening up would be a signifi cant boost for aviation.
What are your future plans for RwandAir?
We have been aff ected by the COVID pandemic and we did have to shrink our services. But doing so has allowed us to begin growing again.
We suspended thinner routes, but we have opened new routes as well, including Lubumbashi and Goma in Democratic Republic of Congo. Our growth will be organic, but we expect to double our fl eet over the next fi ve years.
Diversifying our revenue streams will also be important. Cargo will be a big part of that as we have had the African Continental Free Trade Area operating since the start of 2021. It is estimated that this will grow intra-African trade more than 50% in the fi rst year alone. It removes tariff s on 90% of goods. We must be ready to build on this opportunity.
Why is the codeshare with Qatar Airways important?
The codeshare with Qatar Airways is a major achievement for RwandAir. It gives our passengers access to a world-class airline and a worldwide network. To make it truly seamless, we will launch non-stop fl ights between Kigali and Doha in December 2021.
The agreement will prove benefi cial for both airlines. It gives us access to 265 global destinations and they greatly improve their pan-African off ering. We will also share our loyalty programs and RwandAir is the fi rst sub-Saharan carrier to do that.
In due course, Qatar Airways will also acquire part of RwandAir. And we will also look at other synergies in terms of training, service delivery, and so forth.
Is diversity in aviation moving fast enough?
It is good that the industry recognises diversity and IATA’s 25by2025 initiative is defi nitely a step forward. Several airlines have also been very progressive.
Even so, we are not moving fast enough. There is so much more that can be done, especially in getting women into senior positions. I am always surprised when I attend industry events to see how male-dominated aviation is. It’s very diff erent at RwandAir and in Rwanda too. Our Parliament is 61% women, and our cabinet is more than 50% women. It is a shock to me to see anything skewed heavily in the other direction.
5%
In particular, what are the challenges you see for women aspiring to be senior management? What advice would you give them?
In Rwanda it was a deliberate decision to give women more opportunities and to give them support when they took those opportunities. We must do something similar in aviation. We have to give women a chance but then be
proactive in providing the right framework for them to succeed.
At the moment, too many women feel they have to do more than male counterparts to be off ered the same opportunities or the same pay.
There is no good reason for aviation to stand out as a male-dominated industry. Business is business. Women have a lot to off er.
Is the industry doing enough to mitigate its environmental impact? And how is the issue viewed among African carriers?
I was happy with the net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 resolution at the IATA AGM. The industry needed to take a bold step and the resolution was certainly that. It pushes the industry in the right direction.
The environment has become a big issue in Africa. Climate change will have a severe eff ect on the continent unless we reduce carbon emissions quickly.
But it is important that we understand that this is not just about the airlines. Everybody in the industry must play their part from airports to airframe manufacturers. Airlines are singled out as the polluters, but every fl ight is the combination of a vast number of stakeholders and each of those stakeholders has a role to play in helping to reduce emissions.
Aside from recovering from the impact of the pandemic, what do you think will be the main issues aff ecting African aviation?
The main thing about African aviation is its potential for growth. There is an absolutely massive market waiting to be connected.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is an important development. It will drive trade and in turn that will drive demand for business travel. We have to be ready to leverage that opportunity. Of course, creating a single African aviation market would provide an even bigger stimulus.
African airlines also have to be better at collaborating with each other on noncompetitive issues, such as safety and taxes and charges. There is more we can achieve together and that would provide an example to governments on the benefi ts of partnership to economies and the end user.
Anything we can do to get the cost base down would make African airlines more competitive and allow more Africans to travel.
If you could change one thing about your airline or the industry in general what would it be and why?
Apart from more women in senior positions? Because that would certainly make for a stronger industry!
As we come out of the pandemic, I think it will be more important than ever to listen to our customers. Passengers will have new requirements and greater expectations about carbon emissions, contactless travel, and so much more. Airlines have to understand what our customers want from the new travel experience.
Despite the pandemic, this is an exciting time. That is especially true for RwandAir following the agreement with Qatar Airways and the potential in Africa. But it could be true for any airline that is willing to listen, adapt, and provide seamless, sustainable services.
Climate
reduce carbon emissions quickly 50%
Cargo will be a big part of [diversifying our revenue streams] as we have had the African Continental Free Trade Area operating since the start of 2021. It is estimated that this will
grow intra-African
trade more than 50% in the fi rst year alone.
Jeff Lennon, Vice President SSGP
Smart Borders pave the way for seamless travel
Vision-Box is using its Smart Borders technology to enhance and speed up transit through border control
Seamless travel is the goal of every airline. To have the means to move a passenger from kerb to aircraft without queues, document checks, and onerous security protocols would enrich the travel experience, encourage social and cultural contact and boost economies.
The good news is that the pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of air transport. The technology is working well with widespread proof in the fi eld. With the high reliability that the use of biometrics provides, back-end systems are starting to use open architectures that enable solutions for end-to-end journeys.
Critically, we are also seeing regulations catching up with technology as governments start to understand the need for both better identity management and expedited processes that optimise available resources.
Fast, hassle-free processes and thorough risk management are not mutually exclusive. As rules begin to embrace technological innovation, true seamless travel draws ever nearer. Work on border control, with all the complexities this implies, has until now been lagging behind, but that is changing. In the United States, an Automated Passport Control (APC) program was instrumental in introducing biometrics and has now been superseded by a new biometric entry/exit program. Similar nationwide initiatives are now taking place in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, UAE.
Meanwhile, Vision-Box is working with the Finnish Border Guard (RAJA) on implementing the fi rst EU Entry/Exit System (EES) project inside the Schengen area. The EES digitizes processes relating to the movement of third country nationals (TCN) entering and leaving the Schengen space at air, sea and land borders. Information is recorded in a central interoperable system and can be accessed by all EU Member States to monitor irregular travel and stop overstayers. It is expected to become mandatory in 2023.
Vision-Box has implemented Smart Borders at Helsinki Airport based on its Orchestra platform. This platform is compliant with EU GDPR regulations through privacy-by-design certifi cation. It enables users to implement business rules and is the kernel of advanced identity management proofi ng and fl ow monitoring of traveller processes at the border.
In essence, a suite of digital tools, including contactless biometric identifi cation, reduces or eliminates passenger contact with touchscreen surfaces and border control offi cers.
“By unleashing the power of Orchestra,
“We have designed a touchless experience, which allows preenrolled information to be used for on-the-move contactless clearance at all border
crossing points” Jeff Lennon, Vision-Box
sustained by last generation touchpoints and our Visiontec biometric matching engine, together with RAJA we have designed a touchless experience, allowing pre-enrolled information to be used at all border crossing points for on-the-move contactless clearance,” says Jeff Lennon, Vice President Strategic Sales and Global Partnerships at Vision-Box.
The aim is to reduce queues at checkpoints and prevent hot spots forming. This approach additionally off ers signifi cant improvements over traditional manual and touch-based identifi cation procedures in terms of hygiene, accuracy, and privacy protection.
“The EES solution for Helsinki airport has been developed in close-knit cooperation,” says Pasi Nokelainen, System Manager for Border Checks of RAJA. “Defi ning the processes together has given us all a deep insight and technical abilities to implement an EES compliant solution. With the solution and devices, we are looking forward to the future challenges with confi dence.”
Vision-Box is also working on a land border innovative pilot in Bulgaria with Frontex and has implemented Automated Border Control eGates at Malta International Airport. Furthermore, the company is involved in single-token biometric solutions for Emirates at Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport, and is introducing identity management technology, across 136 airports in cooperation with the AirAsia Group.
