The final aerospace and defence podcast for the Middle East and Africa for this year closes on a positive note. Kenya’s Aberdair Aviation which has been delivering ACMI charter operations for almost two decades is expanding its business with a new base in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The airline’s CEO Adrian Wilcox talks to Alan Peaford about his fleet plans and the strategy of multi-AOCs from Kenya, Ghana and now Kinshasa with Tanzania and Uganda in the pipeline. Steve Nichols takes a look at JSSI, the company that brought power-by-the-hour to the business aviation world and talks to Pa ..read more

Tourism provides an enormous boost for a number of countries in Africa and the Middle East. In Africa, safaris have been the lifeblood for the GDPs of countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that. So what happens to an airline that almost exclusively has a business model that focuses on serving tourists. The CEO of Kenya’s Safarilink, Alex Avedi explains the impact the virus had on the boutique airline to African Aerospace correspondent Edward Njeru. He also outlines the strategy going forward and plans for new aircraft to fuel the growth w ..read more

As Dassault rolls out its first new business jet of a generation, which legitimately can claim to be a game changer, we hear how the 6X took its place in Falcon family But while business aviation is looking at new horizons, the airline business has been in survival mode – or as Akbar Al Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways group says it is about doing the right thing. Qatar kept flying throughout global lockdowns and in this piece he explains just how that was done. We also get to talk to French company Moment who have a now portable wireless IFE system and have been selected by Air Senegal to int ..read more

With encouraging news around the world regarding approvals of different Covid-19 vaccines, attention swings to distribution of the vital cargo. The UAE has already developed airside warehousing to act to as a hub for the distribution. But what about Africa? We talk to Sanjeev Ghadia, the CEO of Africa’s largest cargo carrier, Astral Aviation and the chair of AFRAA’s cargo committee and vice chair of industry body TIACA, about the situation across the continent. Astral has been one of the few airlines in the world to have seen positive growth during the pandemic and Ghadia also explains why he ..read more

As IATA holds its AGM there are clear signs of change. CEO Alexandre de Juniac is stepping down and will be succeeded by the loquacious former IAG chief Willie Walsh who takes no time to take off the diplomatic gloves and point figures at misguided governments. In this week’s podcast we hear from both of them as they lay out future direction IATA will take. While airlines have been seen to be bearing the brunt of the travel collapse, CANSO reports that air navigation service providers have lost more than $9 billion so far since the start of the pandemic. We talk to Ryyan Tarabzoni , the CEO o ..read more

As the true green shoots of recovery begin to show we look at how some old links will prosper as travel restarts in earnest. For Middle Eastern markets the Indian sub-continent will be vital. Special guest for this week’s programme is Sanjiv Kapoor, who is now senior advisor at global consulting firm Alton Aviation. Sanjiv has been a key figure in India’s airline industry having been chief strategy and commercial officer of Vistara – the joint venture airline between TATA and Singapore Airlines, and was previously chief operating officer for successful low cost carrier SpiceJet. Kapoor tells ..read more

This week’s programme comes from the African airline industry’s AFRAA annual general assembly. Although on a virtual platform this year, airline CEOs and representatives from governments, associations and the whole aviation supply chain logged in. Our air transport editor Victoria Moores and airports editor Chloe Greenbank were there too and they give their overview on the future for the industry. In the programme we hear from Sanjeev Ghadia the CEO of Astral Aviation, Yvonne Makolo, CEO of Rwandair and Angola’s Minister of Transport Ricardo de Abreu, as they individually call for action not ..read more

This week’s Insight programme, hosted by Marcelle Nethersole, looks at the world of two of the major players in the Middle East and Africa regions. Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to develop its defence industry and has given GAMI – the Kingdom’s General Authority for Military Industries – a mandate to to localize 50% of Saudi Arabia’s military spending over the next decade. A key part of the Saudi Vision 2030 strategy GAMI will act as the regulator, enabler and licensor for the defence industry and will work with international defence companies and specifically the OEMs to see this change t ..read more

In this week’s look into the world of aerospace and defence across the Middle East and Africa, Peter Mohring, managing director of transport at Serco Middle East, explains why it has never been timelier for the air transport sector to embrace outsourcing to help with post pandemic recovery. Serco provides services across the Gulf from the UAE to Iraq including air traffic management services in Dubai, Sharjah and Baghdad. Mohring says as one of the first industries affected, overnight the pandemic sent the aviation industry into crisis mode, with overall air traffic levels down by about 80 pe ..read more

Safety is always a priority for airlines and while technology has made giant strides to aid flights – sometimes just shouting can make a difference. That’s what Airports Editor Chloe Greenback discovered when she looked at how bird-strikes and other wildlife incursions at airfields impact aviation safety. These represent as much as 3% of aircraft safety incidents – and cost the industry more than $1.2 billion annually - with the majority of the challenges being from bird strikes. IN this week’s programme Chloe talks to Cerian Henshaw, Director of Operations at Aviare a wildlife hazard managem ..read more