GHANA IS A GROWING DESTINATION FROM EU COUNTRIES

Madam Cecilia Dapaah, the Minister of Aviation, asked international carriers operating in Ghana to form partnerships with local and regional airlines towards expanding their businesses and making Ghana an aviation hub.

Data on aviation and travel patterns show that there was an opportunity for local airlines to grow and expand their operations beyond the borders of Ghana.

She was speaking to airline operators at a maiden Breakfast Meeting organized by Aviation Ghana, an online aviation news portal to provide a platform for the Ministry and stakeholders in the sector to engage, bring up challenges and find solutions to them.

Madam Dapaah said the Ministry’s key objective was to establish Ghana as the aviation hub in the sub-region, thus the need to ensure that the requisite elements were in place to achieve that goal.

Quoting statistics from the International Air Travel Association (IATA), she noted that the global airline industry was growing, with some 3.8 billion passengers carried; 54.9 million tonnes of cargo lifted; an estimated $650 billion spent by air travelers; and international trade shipped by air valued at $5.5 trillion in 2016.

Data from the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) also indicate that while Europe remained a popular destination for travelers from Ghana; West Africa was also gaining momentum following the liberalization of the airspaces of major economies in the sub-region.

The European route had commanded 37.6% of the outbound traffic from Ghana as at end of the first quarter of 2017.

West Africa followed with 20.3%, East Africa-14.5%, Middle East 9.9%, North America 6.5%, and Southern Africa 5.5%.