The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) is set to prepare airport usage regulation in the coming Ethiopian year; bidding to curb multifaceted challenges of private aviation operators in their duties.
Private aviation operators have been complaining over versatile challenges they have been enduring while sharing the runways with Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian); as they are devoid of their own. While sharing the run ways at Ethiopian, they are forced to incurring huge fees for moving their passenger buses in compound and sharing the same counter with Ethiopian.
As Ethiopian Airport always gives priority to Ethiopian, private operators are entertained only when there is free space to land their planes. Therefore, they are forced to live in accordance with the schedules of EAL, a source in ECAA told NewBusinessEthiopia.com. With the growth of Ethiopian, it has become almost impossible for them to get free runways; and the problem have been aggravating year after year. Even if private operators have requested to construct their own runways from the government, their inquiry have not yet attained any response.
Besides, every maintenance of their aircraft is done in Nairobi, Kenya. Students of private operators (pilots and cabin crews) are forced to practice outside Addis Ababa; due to congestion here; which is also additional burden to the proliferation of private aviation industry in the country.
It is stated that the regulation to be prepared by ECAA is expected to curb these and many more challenges facing private operators today; if not give wholesome solution to their complicated problems. The regulation may provide answer to many of the dilemmas of private operators like assigning scheduled time of landing and takeover, dedicating a counter and a hangar, issues related to slot usage, among others.
The source in ECAA indicated that that private operators usually express their grievances to ECAA regarding airport services provisions by saying, “Airport enterprise should not undermine us; rather should help us grow by easing off many of our challenges; if not provide us technical support to ensure our proliferation.”
Airport Enterprise was amalgamated with EAL three years ago. Currently there are from nine to eleven private operators in Ethiopia, as the number varies during registration year after year.
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