International Air Transport Association (IATA) director-general Willie Walsh has hailed progress in aviation safety in Africa but urged that more be done. He was addressing the 2024 Annual General Assembly of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA). (AFRAA is the representative body for the continent’s airlines, while IATA is the representative body for the global airline industry.)

“Safety thrives with global standards,” he highlighted, pointing to the success of the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). Passing (and re-passing) IOSA was a condition for membership of both IATA and AFRAA, he pointed out. “Airlines on the IOSA registry outperform those not on the registry. That is the case in Africa and globally.”

“Africa has made significant improvements in safety,” he noted. “There were no hull losses or fatal accidents between 2020 and 2023. However, we took a step backwards from this in 2024. And even in 2023 the African turboprop hull loss rate was the highest in the world. That tells us that there is still work to do on safety.”

An important part of this was safety culture. IATA has developed a Safety Leadership Charter, containing eight principles, intended to create a standard global approach for safety culture for each and every airline. So far, the IATA Safety Leadership Charter had been signed by the CEOs of 118 airlines, of which 14 were African airlines. While this was, Walsh said, a “significant number”, there were 37 IATA-member airlines and 64 IOSA-registered airlines across the continent. That meant that more could sign the Charter, and he encouraged those who had not yet done so, to do so.

An important outcome of a good safety culture was a willingness to share data, he pointed out. The more data the industry could compile, the deeper the insights that could be drawn from it. Consequently, he also urged the airlines that were not yet contributing data to the Global Aviation Data Management (GADM) initiative, to do so. GADM had become an invaluable analytical tool, improving safety. Those airlines which contributed data to GADM received data in return, which could strengthen their safety performance.

And African governments had to do their part. He observed that the African Civil Aviation Commission has reported that some 20 of its member States had not yet met its 60% implementation threshold for the Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

“That’s not good enough,” asserted Walsh. “And it is also not good enough that we are still waiting for final reports from 38 accidents in Africa investigated under {ICAO] Annex 13. We cannot let governments in Africa – or anywhere for that matter – forget their crucial responsibilities to implement ICAO SARPs and complete accident reports in a timely manner.”