Somali skies darken

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Anywhere else in the world, the bombing of an international passenger flight would attract round-the-clock media coverage and a global manhunt for the perpetrators.

In Somalia, however, more than two decades of brutal civil war have desensitised both the domestic population and the outside world to mass-casualty atrocities. Amid a seemingly endless cycle of indiscriminate violence in the country, even the deadliest terror attacks fail to hold the attention of the press.

So it was in January, when upwards of 100 Kenyan troops stationed in Somalia were killed in an attack on their army base by Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-linked terror group.

And so it was again on 2nd February, when a suicide bomber evaded security screening at Mogadishu Airport and exploded his device aboard Daallo Airlines Flight 159 to Djibouti...

Iran cleared for take-off

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To describe the mood of the Iranian aviation industry as "upbeat" this year would be something of an understatement.

After a decades-long embargo that blocked Iran from forging ties with the rest of the world, the Islamic Republic flung opens its doors on 16 January 2016 – Implementation Day for the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions. Its reintegration culminated years of diplomatic wrangling between Iran and the P5+1 group of international negotiators.

As the first global conference held in Tehran for nearly 40 years, CAPA's Iran Aviation Summit was considered a litmus test for overseas interest in the Middle East's second largest economy.

It did not disappoint...

Bigger than Dubai?

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Aviation geeks love Iran Air, but for all the wrong reasons. Decades of sanctions have left Iran's flag-carrier with one of the oldest fleets in the world, featuring museum-vintage aircraft like a 39-year-old Boeing 747SP, the only passenger aircraft of its type still in service. Blocked from ordering Western-built jets for three decades, Iran Air and the country's 15 other carriers have extended the lives of their obsolete planes while scouring the black market for second-hand ones. The results are predictable: 37 crashes of Iranian aircraft since the turn of the century, claiming more than 900 lives...

Interview: Abdul Mohsen Junaid, Saudia CEO

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When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began the privatisation of its flag-carrier in 2006, everyone understood that the mainline airline would be the last of the group's six business units to be sold off.

One decade on, the passenger division remains firmly under the wing of its well-endowed government owner. That is no surprise given the company's ongoing financial troubles: chief executive Abdul Mohsen Junaid freely admits that Saudia is "nowhere close to break-even on domestic routes" – a segment that accounts for two-thirds of its seating capacity.

But while Saudia-the-airline is not yet ready to leave the nest, Saudia-the-group has made impressive strides towards privatisation...

Interview: Abdullah Al Sharhan, Kuwait Airways CEO

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In 2014, the average age of an aircraft in Kuwait Airways' fleet was a whopping 20 years.

Today that figure has nearly halved thanks to the induction of a dozen new Airbus jets. Next year it will plummet close to zero as the last ageing units are replaced, completing the flag-carrier's re-birth after decades of political indecision and commercial stagnation.

"By mid-2017 we will go to a completely new fleet, and we will be youngest in the region," beamed new chief executive Abdullah Al Sharhan. "That is after being almost the oldest...

Why you can safely ignore airline safety rankings

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Travel websites were abuzz this month with the latest safety ranking from Airline Ratings, an industry data provider. Australian flag-carrier Qantas was crowned the safest airline in the world for the third year in a row, while other big names like American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Emirates also made it into the top ten. At the bottom of the list were some rather more obscure carriers like Batik Air and Kalstar Aviation.

Airline Ratings came up with its ranking by looking at a range of factors perceived to reflect safety performance – prior accident history, current fleet type, recognized industry certifications and so forth. At least two other websites also claim to rank airlines by safety: the Air Transport Rating Agency; and the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Center.

Each of these reports, though, comes up with wildly different rankings. And that is not surprising, given that their authors are engaged in PR exercises bereft of any statistical validity...

Interview: József Váradi, Wizz Air CEO

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József Váradi, the founder and chief executive of Wizz Air, coined a new term for the aviation industry at last year's World Travel Market in London: "lazy low-cost".

His neologism drew a line between two types of low-cost carriers (LCCs): on the one hand, true LCCs that have an obsessive focus on cost-cutting and ancillary surcharges; on the other, "lazy" LCCs that allow legacy expenses to creep into their business models.

"Only Wizz and Ryanair are [true] low-cost," he told delegates at the industry conference. "The likes of EasyJet and Norwegian [Air Shuttle], we would call them 'lazy low-cost'."

Fast forward to this summer's World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London, and Váradi took to the stage in a more nuanced environment for the fast-paced LCC sector...

Metrojet disaster reverberates worldwide

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Whatever doubts remained about the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 over the Sinai Peninsula were extinguished last month, when Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting: "We can unequivocally say it was a terrorist act." A grim-faced Putin responded by pledging to "find and punish the perpetrators" of the atrocity, which killed 224 mostly Russian passengers and crew on 31 October.

Moscow had initially played down the possibility of a terrorism link, raising fears in the West that Putin might cover up the cause of the crash to deflect criticism of his military campaign in Syria. But as the body of evidence pointing to Islamic State (IS) involvement grew daily – comprising audio from the cockpit voice recorder, traces of explosives on the wreckage, intercepts of terrorist chatter, and claims of responsibility by IS – Russia shifted its narrative.

The Egyptian government now stands alone in denying evidence of an intentional act...

Interview: René Décurey, Air Côte d'Ivoire CEO

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West African aviation was dealt a heavy blow in 2002, when Air Afrique ceased operations and the sub-region lost its only transnational carrier.

Based in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan, the pan-African airline had been launched in 1961 as a joint venture between two French airlines: flag-carrier Air France and the now-defunct Union Aeromaritime de Transport (UAT). Two-thirds of Air Afrique's capital was held by an alliance of West African states, ensuring strong political support across the sub-region.

Following its demise, regional powerbrokers came together again in 2004 under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to establish a successor. Their efforts delivered ASKY Airlines, the Togo-based carrier part-owned by Ethiopian Airlines.

Air France and Abidjan may, perhaps, have felt sidelined by the move, but they would not be out of the picture for long...

Modi's bumbling aviation boom

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India is the fastest-growing aviation market on the planet, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an industry trade group. No thanks to government. Having been elected last year on a pro-business reformist ticket, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, is back-pedalling on his administration's pledge to modernise the sector. After 15 months in power, opined one columnist, "reforms have moved at a pace it takes … to travel from Delhi to Hyderabad by foot, rather than by an airplane."...

Interview: Christopher Luxon, Air New Zealand CEO

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During his time in the Chicago office of Unilever, Christopher Luxon helped the consumer goods giant burn its way through "easily half a billion dollars" a year on US advertising and promotion.

His subsequent appointment as the chief executive of Air New Zealand in January 2013 came with a rather more modest budget, but what the flag-carrier lacks in spending power it easily makes up for in zany brand initiatives and out-of-the-box guerrilla campaigns.

"Marketing gets us punching above our weight and gets us being talked about. It positions our brand as something different," Luxon tells Asian Aviation...

Last chance saloon for SAA

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Since the turn of the century, beleaguered South African Airways (SAA) has embarked on no fewer than eight failed turnaround strategies. Having now completed an emergency “90-day action plan” to restore near-term solvency, it is resuming the ninth such attempt.

The heavily loss-making airline has in many ways come to embody everything that is wrong with state-owned flag-carriers: commercially profligate, lumbering companies whose cost structures hark back to a bygone era of luxury flying. While its European and North America competitors were long ago jolted into reality by a wave of deregulation and privatisation, SAA continues to live in its government’s pocket, hiding behind a wall of protectionism that props up the parastatal while holding down the private sector...

Shrinks in the cockpit

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In the aftermath of the deliberate crashing of Germanwings Flight 9525, pilots cautioned against a knee-jerk reaction to the tragedy by airlines and safety regulators. With hindsight, perhaps, alarm bells should have been ringing about Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer who flew his plane into the French Alps, killing 150. He had been treated for severe depression in 2009, and is thought to have hidden sick notes from his bosses before the crash. Yet we also know that Germanwings followed industry guidelines for dealing with mental-health concerns. Harbouring gloomy thoughts does not preclude someone from having a pilot’s licence...

The big subsidies debate

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No-one disputes that the meteoric rise of Emirates Airline, Dubai’s state-owned flag-carrier, has changed the face of civil aviation. Having started life in 1985 with just two aircraft, the Gulf carrier has ballooned in size to become the world’s largest international airline by seating capacity. Its rapid growth has gone hand-in-hand with the broader economic development of Dubai, whose government sees aviation as a strategic priority.

Geographical advantage undoubtedly lies at the heart of Emirates’ success – Dubai sits at the cross-roads of East and West, making it an ideal stopover for intercontinental travel – but has this blessing been harnessed fairly by a commercial entity, or leveraged maliciously by a deep-pocketed government...

Interview: Skúli Mogensen, WOW Air CEO

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When Iceland’s WOW Air began flying between Europe and North America this March, it was staking its claim on a market that has confounded no-frills operators for decades.

Laker Airways is the name that typically crops up in discussions about the mythical low-cost, long-haul business model. The airline operated out of London Gatwick Airport until its demise in 1982. But it was in fact another Icelandic carrier, Loftleiðir, that first opened up affordable transatlantic flying to the masses – albeit with the annoyance of a stopover in Reykjavik.

Loftleiðir was dubbed the ‘Hippie Express’ throughout the 1960s, proving popular with American students who were visiting Europe on a shoestring budget...

A human response to a human tragedy

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It has been less than a week since the catastrophic loss of Germanwings Flight 9525 and its precious cargo of 144 passengers and six crew. In that short time investigators have pointed the finger of blame squarely at Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer who appears to have locked his captain out of the flight deck and deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps. Though incomprehensible, his gruesome deed is not without precedent for commercial pilots. Fear of falling victim to such asymmetric evil will, inevitably, plague the minds of the 9m passengers who take to the skies each day. It will take time to soothe their concerns. But one Germanwings pilot has already started the healing process, unburdening his heart with emotional, pre-flight speeches to passengers...

Interview: Peter Foster, Air Astana CEO

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If there is one message that Peter Foster, the president and chief executive of Air Astana, wants to get across in 2015, it is that Kazakhstan "is not Russia".

As the second largest member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional grouping of former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan's public image all too often falls on the wrong side of stereotyping.

The woefully inaccurate but irrepressibly funny mockumentary film Borat, released in 2006, epitomised many of these lingering anti-Soviet prejudices.

They are perhaps forgivable misconceptions: Kazakhstan's second official language is Russian; and its president-for-life entered office way back in 1989, when the country was still part of the USSR. But the geopolitical identities of these two neighbours have, in more recent times, sharply diverged – a point that Foster is keen to emphasise while Russia marches defiantly towards global pariah status...

Interview: Said Korshel, Somali Transport Minister

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In most places around the world, working in civil aviation would not be considered an especially dangerous calling.

Somalia, however, is not most places. On September 20, shortly before African Aerospace travelled to Mogadishu for this special report, Ali Mohamed Ibrahim, the general manager of Somalia’s civil aviation authority (SCAMA), was attacked by gunmen en route to his office.

The assassination attempt killed his driver and bodyguard, but Ibrahim managed to escape with his life. He is now receiving medical treatment in Istanbul, and we wish him well.

Such incidents are, regrettably, not uncommon in Somalia...

Interview: Olgan Bekar, Turkish Ambassador to Somalia

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Anyone who doubts Turkey’s long-term commitment to Africa need only look at the growing number of star-and-crescent flags fluttering outside diplomatic missions across the continent. The distinctive red motif now adorns 36 embassies in Africa, three times as many as in 2009.

Each new mission speaks to the growing inertia of commercial and political ties between Ankara and its partners on the continent. Bilateral trade with sub-Saharan Africa is up tenfold since the turn of the century, totalling $7.5 billion in 2013. Among Turkish contractors, Africa now accounts for 19% of international business volumes. Turkey’s heavy-duty exports – notably iron, steel, machinery and vehicles – are helping the continent down the laborious path of industrialisation.

One embassy, though, stands out less for its economic providence than the simple audacity of being opened in the first place...

Libya starts again

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In early 2012, shortly after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by an alliance of tribal militias, Libyan Airlines chief executive Khaled Taynaz spoke to Arabian Aerospace about the prospects for the war-weary country and its well-developed civil aviation sector.

Though careful not to downplay the challenges ahead, Taynaz painted an overwhelmingly positive picture for the future. His mood matched the broader sentiment sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring.

Just two years on, however, events on the ground seem anything but upbeat. The revolutions that engulfed the region have largely evolved into new dictatorships or entrenched civil warfare; many of the militias that united against despots are now turning their guns on each other; and the worrisome security climate has struck fear in the hearts of western governments, which are now mobilising their own forces for potential conflict...