Why are East Africa's skies the most expensive in the world? - Comment
Most Ugandans have seen and laughed at the clueless woman in a World Cup TV advert who celebrates a soccer match victory at half time. But most Ugandans like me are equally clueless in another field — civil aviation.
Being clueless about airline management, we wonder why inside the Common Market of East Africa, flying between Kisumu and Mombasa is 10 times cheaper than flying between Entebbe and Nairobi even though the latter distance is shorter.
Believing our leaders' talk about East African economic integration, we wonder why East Africans traveling within East Africa are subjected to numerous levies that make the journey from Entebbe to Nairobi the most expensive 500-kilometre commercial flight in the world.
Having seen numerous photos of East African presidents signing important protocols over the past 20 years, those of us who are neither aviation nor legal gurus keep wondering why countries that have a joint legislature in Arusha cannot harmonise air travel in their common territory.
When we see the militaries of the East African countries conducting joint exercises and training their senior officers in one classroom, we fail to understand why we also cannot share that thing called air space.
When we hear that an ticket valued at $120 by the airline companies in the region ends up costing the passenger $520, we who are not economic experts fail to understand why our governments, which keep talking of removing barriers to movement of persons in the region, impose levies of an extra $400 per ticket.
And when our leaders boast about removing police roadblocks from the highways, we wonder if they realise that $400 is a bigger obstacle than four hundred police check points for most of us.
People like me who are not investment experts also keep wondering whether there are legal, physical, religious, cultural or political barriers preventing the long suffering East African travellers from floating an aviation company to liberate us from having the world's most expensive flights when we are among the poorest people on the globe.
Because a journey of two hours by air ends up lasting two days by road within our famous Common Market, we cannot help wondering if the people in Arusha who are paid to think, plan and monitor execution are aware of the hardships and losses travellers are forced to endure.
Fifteen years into the 21st century, it is difficult for us who are not transport experts to fathom why the internal aviation sector that was so efficient in the 1960s and 70s with daily scheduled flights linking a dozen towns in Uganda, for example, has virtually died out even though there is a bigger population with higher purchasing power to support it. And yes, aircraft design must have improved over the decades to make operations more efficient.
Because our leaders are supposed to be accountable and caring, they should spare some minutes and explain to those of us, their people, why air travel remains a mysterious luxury denied to our hardworking people who need to travel quickly within the Common Market.
Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International Fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com
