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FEATURE: AVIATION
Can Libyas
aviation sector
take off again?
W
hen Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209
touched down at Malta Interna-
tional Airport on 23rd Decem-
ber 2016, its arrival was anything
but the illustrious new beginning
management had envisioned. For
more than a year, the state-owned Libyan airline had
been working on the Mediterranean island to lay the
foundations for PanAfriqiyah a new subsidiary
intended to rise above Libyas lawlessness and restore
the companys battered fortunes. Instead, Flight 209
was targeted by hijackers with fake weapons who
promised to kill all aboard if the domestic service
was not diverted.
In the European Union, of which Malta is a mem- Afriqiyah Fathi Al-Shatti, the chairman of Libyan Airlines,
ber state, the incident commanded round-the-clock Airways another state-owned carrier, was held by kidnappers
media coverage and a frantic search for answers. Air- for 47 days. Reflecting the situation elsewhere in the
craft hijackings have become exceptionally rare since plans to country, it is local militias not central government
11th September 2001, when new security measures restore its that control the aviation sector.
were introduced in response to the deliberate crashing
of four commercial planes on US soil by Al Qaeda. former role No quick return to stability
The potential for aircraft to be turned into weapons as a hub For Abubaker Elfortia, Afriqiyahs chairman, betting
in this way remains a source of intense anxiety across
the Western world.
operator on a swift return to security and stability would be
commercial suicide. He accepts that the countrys
But to a Libyan audience, Flight 209, though trou- connecting post-Arab Spring surge in air traffic fuelled largely
bling, was far from shocking. The countrys airlines Africa to by optimism about oil production is now a distant
have been in a dismal state since the overthrow of Europe. memory, replaced by stagnant demand and a total
Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, lunging from crisis to absence of international visitors. Today, no foreign
crisis amid an endless string of security breaches. airlines fly to Libya from anywhere in the world, while
The destruction of Tripoli International Airport by the countrys own carriers have been banned from
Islamist rebels in 2014 an assault that wrote off 10 entering European airspace. Afriqiyahs scheduled
aircraft, including two operated by Afriqiyah was route network consists of just four domestic points
just one of several recent incidents. In 2013, gunmen and six regional ones (Alexandria in Egypt, Amman
stormed the gateways Air Traffic Control tower to in Jordan, Istanbul in Turkey, Khartoum in Sudan,
obstruct the landing of a Qatar Airways flight. In and Tunis and Sfax in Tunisia). Before Gaddafi was
2014, shortly before the Islamist assault, a bomb was booted from power, it served 18 destinations in Africa
planted and detonated on its main runway. Last year, and six in Europe.
February 2017 African Business 47