Aviation Africa’s fourth summit and exhibition gears up

Both cargo and passenger airlines are on the list to participate in the conference. Airline CEOs like Astral Aviation's Sanjeev Gadhia and Capt. Valentine Tongo from Nigeria's Allied Air will cover the freight challenges while Philippe Bohn director general of Air Senegal and Marie Joseph Male CEO of Air Austral and the Vanilla Alliance will talk about the Francophile connections.

Regional Airlines will play a vital part in Africa's air transport development and three CEOs, Miles van der Molen from South Africa's CemAir, Rene Decurey from Air Cote d'Ivoire, Marc Gaffajoli from Gabon's Afrijet and Andreas Kaiafas from Equitorial Guinea's Cronos Airlines will talk about how to grow from a start-up to an established stable regional carrier.

The Major airlines like Ethiopian, Kenyan and Egypt are also expected to participate. 

RwandAir's CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo will give her take on the opportunity to develop links across Africa and share the plans for the host airline's hub as well as discussing the issues of retention, recruitment, diversity and culture, while H.E. Mr. Akbar Al Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways will bring a different perspective to the floor. He will be interviewed in a one-to-one with journalist, broadcaster and conference chairman Alan Peaford MBE about the view from non-African airlines of Africa's potential; of the challenges of dealing with political issues beyond an airline's control; about alliances and whether they work in today's climate and about his own role as chairman of IATA - the international airlines group.

The head of Africa's airlines association AFRAA will update the audience on Africa's changing position in the world market and address how African airlines are changing perceptions on issues such as safety. 

The Summit will be attended by heads of state, government ministers and director generals of civil aviation from participating African countries and with keynotes from IATA as well, then the issues of protectionism, high taxation and airport costs are likely to be addressed.

The Summit will be the first 'silent conference' in Africa. The central location in the exhibition hall - featuring more than 110 companies - will see delegates having special headsets allowing them to focus on the speakers in both English and French. 

Speakers, VIP delegations, delegates and exhibitors will all be together in the exhibition hall during breaks. "This is recognised as a great networking event," said event organiser Mark Brown from TIMES Aerospace. "There are big name speakers addressing serious subjects, global exhibitors and African companies showing what is now available for the growing African market - and most of all there are decision makers from African governments. Aviation Africa has unrivalled networking opportunities and we think Rwanda will not disappoint."