Africa:West Africa Regional Air Transport Reforms: Benchmarking Fees / Charges / Taxes to Enable Private Sector Investments

The challenges of the West African air transport market (as described above) are manifold, structural, and significant. Fostering change across all technical areas of the large reform agenda will require significant efforts and a long-term mandate.
In 2016, PPIAF funded a comprehensive report on all fees, charges, and taxes imposed on the aviation sector in West Africa, including a comparative analysis within West Africa and with reference points in other African regions and internationally. The report shows that fees/charges/ taxes imposed on air transport operators in West Africa by far exceed what is charged in other regions. It also demonstrates that fees/charges are often skewed to benefit the national market (and the national carrier), weakening the intra-regional dimension of air transportation in West Africa. This work is an important, first step to enable future, technical reforms by helping to improve the political economy environment for a transformation of the air transport sector in West Africa.  A pilot report on liberalization of the air transport sector in West Africa, with some general consideration for the region and a deeper look at Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea and Togo was also developed. The main benefit of the pilot work undertaken consists in the development of a methodology to assess the degree liberalization through an investigation of traffic and a review of regulatory aspects, in particular the bilateral air service agreements (BASAs).