By Cheikh Fall, Founder of The Third Path Africa
“In a massive continent that contains 16 landlocked countries, planes should be an obvious way of getting around. Yet flying within Africa is an ordeal.” — The Economist
This quote captures a brutal irony: Africa, a continent where air travel should be a lifeline, remains shackled by the very systems meant to connect it. The ordeal is not just about inconvenience—it’s about fragmentation, exclusion, and lost opportunity.
Despite its vast geography and growing population, Africa accounts for just 2% of global air traffic. Intra-African flights are notoriously expensive, indirect, and inefficient. A traveler from Libreville to Bangui may spend $1,000 and 9 hours in transit—often via Europe—while a similar-distance flight from Paris to Madrid costs a fraction and takes two hours.
Why? Because Africa’s aviation architecture was never designed to connect Africans to one another. It was built to extract.
🧭 The Roots of the Ordeal
- Colonial-Era Infrastructure: Radial networks moved resources from hinterlands to ports—not people to opportunity.
- Protectionist Policies: Governments restrict traffic rights to shield national carriers, stifling competition and connectivity.
- High Taxes and Fees: In West Africa, surcharges can make up 40% of a ticket price, deterring both passengers and airlines.
- Fragmented Regulation: Only 19% of possible connections between AU member states have weekly direct flights.
- Lack of Direct Routes: Many cities aren’t connected at all, forcing detours through foreign hubs.
“Africa is not poor—it is fragmented. And fragmentation is expensive.”
Each year, Africa loses over $170 billion to logistics inefficiencies, border delays, and corridor dysfunction. Roads stop at borders. Rail gauges shift with no interoperability. Ports operate as isolated national hubs. There is movement, but not connectivity.
🚦 AHACTI: A Vision from The Third Path Africa
To address this systemic fragmentation, The Third Path Africa has proposed the creation of the African High Authority for Continental Transport Infrastructure (AHACTI)—a treaty-based supranational institution with the legal, fiscal, and operational mandate to build and govern a continent-spanning transport ecosystem.
“Africa’s future lies along its roads, rails, rivers, and skies—connecting people not only to markets, but to one another, to dignity, and to destiny.”
Though still at the conceptual stage, AHACTI represents a bold reimagining of how Africa moves—not through isolated projects, but through an integrated continental transport network infrastructure that spans land, sea, inland waterways, and air. Its vision is to connect all corners of the continent—from ports to hinterlands, borders to markets, and people to opportunity. Not just to facilitate movement, but to restore coherence, dignity, and destiny to Africa’s development journey.
✈️ Rewiring the Skies: A Six-Part Strategy for Continental Aviation
The African Skyway Initiative is not a patchwork of fixes—it is a strategic blueprint to transform Africa’s fractured airspace into a coherent, climate-resilient, and sovereign aviation network. It rests on six interlocking components:
- Green Airport Upgrades Major hubs in Cairo, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Addis Ababa will be retrofitted for climate resilience, expanded capacity, and renewable energy integration—turning them into continental gateways.
- Streamlined Airspace Governance Through full implementation of SAATM protocols, the initiative aims to harmonize safety standards, liberalize air service agreements, and eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks that stifle connectivity.
- Carbon-Fee Air Corridors A climate-smart levy on high-emission routes will fund intra-African connectivity and adaptation infrastructure, ensuring that growth is both inclusive and sustainable.
- Regional Hub Network A coordinated grid of strategic transit nodes across North, West, Central, East, and Southern Africa will enable seamless movement of passengers and cargo—especially for landlocked and underserved regions.
- Integrated Passenger & Cargo Routes Designed to unlock trade, tourism, and emergency response, these routes will prioritize intra-African mobility and reduce dependence on foreign carriers and transit points.
- Aviation Sovereignty & Security With supranational oversight, the initiative will prevent airspace fragmentation, promote equitable access, and establish African-led standards for safety, efficiency, and resilience.
🌍 From Fragmentation to Flight
The African Skyway Initiative is not a standalone fix. It is one modality within a continental framework that envisions:
- Transnational rail corridors
- Digitally integrated road networks
- Sovereign port systems
- Navigable inland waterways
Together, these systems form the arteries of a new African economy—climate-resilient, interoperable, and African-financed.
Planes should be an obvious way of getting around. AHACTI’s vision makes that obviousness a reality—while ensuring that roads, rails, rivers, and ports are equally aligned.
Let us move from ordeal to opportunity. Let us reclaim our skies—and every corridor that connects us.