The West Africa aviation market remains underserved and requires sustained investment to fully realise the benefits of aviation for the region, Vaibhav Doshi, Chief Executive Officer of Vflyair Airline Co. Limited has said.
“There is a lot of space available in the West Africa market. Ghana in particular has a lot of potential. Though there are a lot of airline operators working here, there is still connectivity issues. This shows that the market is raw. We believe that there is still space,” he said in an interview.
The International Air Transport Association forecasts that Africa will be a market of 350 million passengers by 2035, supporting 6.8 million jobs and contributing $80 billion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
It is projected that passenger demand will average 5.7 percent annually within the next two decades.
This presents enormous economic opportunities for countries on the continent.
However, investment has been low and political will to liberalize Africa’s airspace to tap into these benefits has been unsteady.
Mr Doshi, said private airlines such as Vflyair has seen the potential in the Ghanaian market and is ready to operate both passenger and cargo service once their Air Carrier License (ACL) and Air Operator Certificate (AOC) are issued by the aviation sector regulator—the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).
“We saw a gap over here which we have come to fill. We want to put Ghana on the Africa and world connectivity map. When the approval is given by the GCAA, we will operate A319 and A320s with dual class configuration. It will be a full service airline,” he said.
“We will be connecting Accra regionally initially to start with and later on, in partnership with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), we plan to start charters to the Caribbean market and to connect the Far East to Ghana. We feel we will be ready by end of February 2021,” he added.
Vflyair Ghana Limited
Vflyair Ghana Limited is a Ghanaian registered company that is currently undergoing certification by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to operate scheduled passenger and cargo service.
The company plans to operate two Airbus A320s and one A319 offering scheduled services between Accra and Abidjan/Dakar, Accra to Johannesburg and Cape Town via Libreville, Kinshasa and Luanda.
It also plans to connect Accra to Tunis and Cairo in North Africa.
Vflyair Company Limited based in Hanoi City, Vietnam, which currently operates cargo flights and offer charter services to major international organisations in Asia, Central and West Africa are expected to provide the aircraft needed for the Ghana operations.
