Airports In Africa Can Be More Competitive – Angela Gittens

Angela Gittens is the Director General of Airports Council International (ACI), the professional body that represents and promotes the interests of airports around the world. She spoke with Ewos IRORO at the 22^nd Annual ACI Africa Regional Conference held in October 2013 in Lome, Togo where she noted that Airports in Africa need to be more competitive in order to attract more airline and passenger traffic among other salient issues affecting airports in the continent. 

 

Q: Could you give us a brief about ACI and your background experience?

My name is Angela Gittens, I am the Director General of ACI World. ACI has a world office and five regional offices. ACI Africa is one of the regions, along with Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, and Latin America Caribbean. We are located in Montreal and we work very closely with global organisations such as ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which sets the rules for civil aviation around the world.

My background; I have worked at two of the largest airports in the world, the Atlanta Airport which we got ready for the Olympics in 1996 and later Miami Airport which is the gateway to Latin America Caribbean. And before that I was at San Francisco Airport which at that time was in the Asia-Pacific Region. So before I came to ACI I was in three different regions although I was in the US. I have also worked in a Private Airport Management Company and worked for an Airport Consulting Company.

Q: What would you say airports have been able to achieve in the last ten years and what has really changed in airports around the world?

What has really changed in Airports; Airports have evolved into business in their own right. So they are not just infrastructure. They are not just like a road. Airports now have to be managed; and they have to be managed as a business. So, you have to have your safety and security; you have your technical aspects; you have to design it properly; you have to deal with the community because the airport has to be a good neighbour in its community. An airport has to be economically viable in order to serve as the economic engine for its region. So an Airport Director now has to understand how to make money, how to contain costs, how to be efficient which is very important; and customer service.

Airports are now in a competitive situation. And you’ve seen at this conference Airports are all trying to market themselves to airlines. So, it’s no longer that you are just there and airlines come in. Now you have to show airlines why they should serve your community. Your community wants the service, they want frequencies and routes all over the world and they expect you as the Airport Director to provide that. And you have to be very concerned about the environment. You have to be sustainable. So, you have environmentally, financially and socially and that’s relatively new to airports; to have that kind of a role within their communities.

You must also work with your destination. People don’t go to an airport because it’s an airport. They go because either it’s a hub and so they need to get there to catch a plane to get to where they really want to go or they want to go to that destination. So you work with your destination, your tourism authorities, your chamber of commerce and everything that sells a destination. Your hotel association, because if people visit your destination they need some place to sleep. So, you’ve seen communities, the most successful communities in developing air services and you heard today from someone from Kilimanjaro Airport how he tried to put all of that together. And you have to understand the business of one of your customers and that is the airline side of the customer; you have to understand that airline better than that airline understands themselves.

Q: There have been a lot of concerns raised about the standard of facilities at many Airports in Africa. What’s your advice for African Airports?

My advice is to airports in Africa is to do what they are now doing. You see how many people are here; they really need to gain the knowledge in best practices of other airports in Africa and around the world. So being part of the airport community, the Airports Council International is part of that development. You can no longer just run an airport as if you are just in a community and you are managing that one airport. You are part of the world and you are being compared by airlines and passengers to other airports in other parts of the world and in Africa.

So, you need to expand your horizon, learn all you can, but also educate your owner. That’s one of the issues in Africa that we’ve talked about; is that governments sometimes make policies that are not good for the airport and therefore not good for the country. So, really the Airport Manager has to work with their government as well as with their destination and other stakeholders; your chambers of commerce, your tourism etc., and educate government on what are the best policies and practices to make the airport and the destination valuable and marketable to get air service and to get passengers to come.

Q: Looking at the issue of development of airports in Africa, should it be in terms of more airports or upgrading the current ones?

I think at this stage it’s primarily upgrading the current ones. I think there are certainly some places that we need more airports but I think overall, the bigger issue is upgrading the current airports to the standards that they need. They don’t have to be fancy. But you just have to make sure that you have a good safety programme, a good security programme, and what I see really lacking in many airports in Africa is they don’t have a good revenue management programme. They don’t have strong retail which in this market I think they certainly could have. I think many of the locations in Africa, certainly they have tourists and they can do a much better job at merchandising items that give a sense of place. Africa is still considered exotic to the rest of the world, exotic sales. You go to a place in Africa from Europe or the US, you’ve never been to a place like that before; you want mementoes of that place and there’s a lot particularly in the cultural and ark fields: there’s a lot more that can be done; much more high-end merchandise. And I know it can be difficult because you need the right kind of procurement processes to get the best retailers and the food and beverage operators. This is an area that’s being neglected and that will generate revenue which then can be used for investment.

Q: How environmentally responsible are airports in Africa today?

Airports are very environmentally responsible. ACI has a programme called the Carbon Accreditation Programme and Africa has joined that programme. So, some airports in Africa have started to join that. We also run a programme for smaller airports which is Airports Carbon Emissions Tool so that if they don’t have an Environmental Engineer on their staff they can measure and monitor their emissions and undertake processes to reduce them. We run conferences and in fact we have one coming up in February. We have an Environmental Committee and they are holding a Workshop so airports around the world can come and hear best practices. We have guidance materials. We have a training course that can be taken online on best environmental practices. So airports are part of this industry and this industry has probably been the most aggressive about reducing their carbon footprint.